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 filled with wildlife and plant life rarely encountered at other locations like South Kensington or White City. In many respects, they are correct – every representation of Silwood Park holds true!
As a member of this lesser-known Imperial community, I want to shine a light on the student experience, activities, and community at our natural parkland campus located in Ascot, Berkshire.
An overview of Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s outdoor research site, covering 77 hectares and showcasing ecosystems such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” forest, and expansive grasslands. A quick search on iNaturalist, an application that enables the mapping and sharing of biodiversity observations globally with a network of naturalists, indicates that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus. An additional search on eBird shows that 111 bird species have been noted on campus to date.
Interestingly, Silwood Park is also the location of various long-term field research initiatives, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being two of the more recognized studies taking place on the premises.
Life of students 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. Noteworthy examples include:
- Chicken Club – responsible for caring for the chickens raised behind our residence halls
- Book Club – who convene regularly to talk about books of interest on their reading lists
- Gardening Club – who oversee the community garden allotments
- Conservation Club – who coordinate nature walks and conservation-related activities for students on Silwood Park Campus.
As part of the broader Imperial student community, many of us are also members and actively engage in activities of clubs based in South Kensington!
Informally, we have clubs that partake in sports such as badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), held either on the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or at indoor sports facilities in nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
Apart from club activities and lessons, we host numerous community-led events on campus. Silwood Park has its own student council that organizes and supports these activities to ensure a dynamic and engaging student life! Recently, we held the Silwood language exchange, where our predominantly international community came together to share languages and cultures over several weeks, and we also celebrated our annual Chinese New Year at the beginning of the year, bringing everyone together to make dumplings and couplets to welcome the new lunar year. We’ve also seen community-organized celebrations for various global events (like Carnival) or parties just for the joy of partying.
However, my favorite campus event undoubtedly has to be the weekly pub quiz, organized by our student community. It’s ingrained in Silwood culture that the teams who lose the pub quiz are responsible for hosting the next one, and I can proudly declare the highest number of pub quizzes set this year. Even with my numerous losses in pub quizzes due to my inadequate general trivia knowledge, there’s always a great time to be had with good friends and a nice pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Even though it’s a 30-minute walk from the bustling excitement of civilization (e.g., the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never seemed dull or uninteresting. In addition to the plethora of events and activities, we enjoy a warm and friendly community made up of students from across the globe. All of us share a passion for nature, cherish our