Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet with Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
When the majority of Imperial students consider Silwood Park, they picture a vibrant, intriguing, and verdant campus bustling with flora and fauna rarely found at other campuses such as South Kensington or White City. In many respects, they’re correct—and every visualization of Silwood Park holds true!
As a voice for this lesser-known segment of Imperial, I wish to shed light on the student experience, activities, and community at our natural parkland campus in Ascot, Berkshire.
An overview of Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s outdoor research hub, covering 77 hectares and encompassing habitats like freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” woodland, and expansive grasslands. A quick search on iNaturalist, an application where you can map and share biodiversity observations worldwide with a social network of naturalists, reveals that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus, while a further search on eBird indicates that 111 bird species have been documented on campus to date.
Interestingly, Silwood Park is also the location of numerous long-term field research endeavors, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being among the more prominent initiatives carried out on-site.
Student experience at Silwood Park
The campus primarily accommodates postgraduate students passionate about projects related to ecology, conservation, and evolution. Most of us participate in various clubs based at Silwood Park. Some notable examples include:
- Chicken Club – responsible for caring for the chickens kept behind our residence halls
- Book Club – regularly convening to discuss books of interest
- Gardening Club – overseeing the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – coordinating nature walks and conservation-oriented activities for students on Silwood Park Campus.
As part of the broader Imperial student body, many of us also engage in activities with clubs headquartered in South Kensington!
Informally, we also have groups that partake in sports such as badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), which take place either on the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or at indoor sports facilities in nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
In addition to club activities and classes, we host numerous community-led events on campus. Silwood Park features its own student council that organizes and promotes such events to ensure a lively and engaging student life! In recent months, we’ve 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 start of the year, where everyone gathered to make dumplings and couplets to welcome in the new lunar year. Additionally, we’ve hosted community-organized parties celebrating events from around the globe (such as Carnival) or parties arranged simply for the joy of celebrating.
However, my favorite campus event has to be the weekly pub quiz, orchestrated by our student community. It’s a Silwood tradition that the losers of the pub quiz are responsible for organizing the next one, and I can proudly claim the title for the most pub quizzes set this year. Despite losing several pub quizzes due to my inadequate general trivia knowledge, there’s always a great time to be had with good company and a refreshing pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Even though it’s a 30-minute walk away from the lively atmosphere of civilization (e.g., the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never seemed monotonous or deficient. Besides the many events and activities, we boast a welcoming and friendly community made up of students from across the globe. We all cherish nature, adore our stunning campus grounds,