Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet focused on Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation
When the majority of Imperial students picture Silwood Park, they see a verdant, enigmatic campus brimming with wildlife and vegetation rarely encountered at other locations like South Kensington or White City. In many respects, they are correct – every depiction of Silwood Park holds true!
As a spokesperson for this often-overlooked community at Imperial, I aim to showcase the student experience, activities, and community at our natural parkland campus located in Ascot, Berkshire.
Introducing Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s outdoor laboratory, covering 77 hectares and featuring ecosystems such as freshwater streams, ponds, an “ancient” woodland, and open fields. A quick search on iNaturalist, an application that allows users to map and share biodiversity observations worldwide within an online network of naturalists, reveals that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus, and an additional search on eBird shows that 111 bird species have been documented on campus thus far.
Notably, Silwood Park hosts numerous 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-site.
Student life at Silwood Park
The campus primarily accommodates postgraduate students with interests in ecology, conservation, and evolution projects. Many of us engage in various clubs based at Silwood Park. Some notable examples include:
- Chicken Club – taking care of the chickens raised behind our residence halls
- Book Club – who meet regularly to discuss books from their reading lists
- Gardening Club – responsible for managing the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – organizing nature walks and conservation-related activities for students on Silwood Park Campus.
Being part of the broader Imperial student community, many of us also join and actively participate in clubs based in South Kensington!
Casually, we have clubs that enjoy sports such as badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), held either on the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or at the indoor sports facilities in nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
Alongside club activities and classes, numerous community-driven events occur on campus. Silwood Park boasts its own student council that organizes and facilitates these activities to ensure a vibrant and engaging student life! In recent months, we’ve hosted the Silwood language exchange, where our predominantly international community united to share languages and cultures over several weeks, and we celebrated our annual Chinese New Year gathering at the beginning of the year, where everyone participated in making dumplings and couplets to welcome the new lunar year. We’ve also had community-hosted parties celebrating events from around the globe (like Carnival) or gatherings organized simply to enjoy the spirit of celebration.
However, my favorite campus activity has to be the weekly pub quiz organized by our student community. It’s customary in Silwood culture that the team losing the pub quiz must host the next one, and I can proudly say I hold the record for the most pub quizzes set this year. Despite losing numerous quizzes due to my limited knowledge of general trivia, there’s always a great time to be had with wonderful company and a good pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Even though it’s a 30-minute walk from the lively surroundings of civilization (e.g., the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never felt monotonous or lacking. Besides the multitude of events and activities, we have a friendly and inviting community made up of students from all