Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet with Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
When the majority of Imperial students picture Silwood Park, they imagine a verdant, enigmatic, and green campus brimming with wildlife and flora seldom found at other sites like South Kensington or White City. In many respects, they’re correct – every depiction of Silwood Park is true!
As a member of this lesser-known community at Imperial, I’d like to emphasize the student experience, activities, and community at our natural parkland campus situated in Ascot, Berkshire.
Getting to know Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s outdoor laboratory, covering 77 hectares and featuring habitats such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” forest, and expansive grasslands. A simple inquiry on iNaturalist, an app for cataloging and sharing biodiversity observations globally with a social network of naturalists, reveals that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus. Additionally, a search on eBird indicates that 111 bird species have been noted on campus thus far.
More fascinatingly, Silwood Park is also home to numerous long-term research endeavors, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being among the more recognized studies conducted on-site.
The student experience at Silwood Park
The campus primarily hosts postgraduate students engaged in projects related to ecology, conservation, and evolution. Most of us belong to several clubs based at Silwood Park. Highlighted examples include:
- Chicken Club – responsible for caring for the chickens raised behind our residence halls
- Book Club – regularly meeting to discuss books of interest from their reading lists
- Gardening Club – managing the allotments within our community garden
- Conservation Club – organizing nature walks and conservation-focused activities for students on Silwood Park Campus.
As part of the larger Imperial student community, many of us are also members and actively engage in activities of clubs based in South Kensington too!
Unofficially, we have clubs that participate in sports like badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), held either on the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or at the indoor sports halls located in nearby towns such as Bracknell or Ascot.
In addition to club activities and classes, there are numerous community-led events on campus. Silwood Park has its own student council that organizes and facilitates such activities to ensure we enjoy a lively and engaging student life! In recent months, we’ve hosted the Silwood language exchange, where our predominantly international community gathered to share languages and cultures over a few weeks. We also celebrated our annual Chinese New Year event at the start of the year, where everyone united to make dumplings and couplets to welcome in the new lunar year. We’ve also seen community-organized parties commemorating celebrations from across the globe (such as Carnival) or simply parties held for the love of socializing.
However, my favorite campus event has to be the weekly pub quiz, arranged by our student community. It’s part of Silwood culture that the losing team of the pub quiz has to organize the next one, and I can proudly claim the highest number of pub quizzes set this year. Despite losing many pub quizzes due to my poor general knowledge, there’s always great enjoyment in good company with a nice pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Even though it’s a 30-minute walk from the lively essence of civilization (e.g., the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never felt dull or deficient. In addition to the multitude of events and activities, we enjoy a friendly and inviting community made up of students from all corners of the globe. All of us cherish nature, love our