Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet specializing in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation
When many Imperial students picture Silwood Park, they see a vibrant, enigmatic, green campus filled with wildlife and vegetation not often found at other locations like South Kensington or White City. In numerous ways, they’re correct—and every portrayal of Silwood Park is precise!
As a part of this lesser-known community at Imperial, I aim to showcase the student experience, activities, and the community within our natural parkland campus located in Ascot, Berkshire.
An overview of Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s open-air laboratory, covering 77 hectares and featuring environments such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” woodland, and expansive grasslands. A quick search on iNaturalist, an application designed for mapping and sharing biodiversity observations worldwide within an online community of naturalists, shows that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus. Further exploration on eBird indicates that 111 bird species have been noted on campus to date.
More intriguingly, Silwood Park is also the venue for numerous long-term field research initiatives, including the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project, among the more recognized projects conducted here.
Life of students at Silwood Park
The campus primarily accommodates postgraduate students engaged in ecology, conservation, and evolution-related projects. Most of us are members of various clubs based at Silwood Park. Prominent examples include:
- Chicken Club – responsible for the care of chickens raised behind our residence halls
- Book Club – who meet regularly to converse about interesting reads from their lists
- Gardening Club – managing the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – coordinating nature walks and conservation-centered activities for students on Silwood Park Campus.
As part of the broader Imperial student body, many of us also get involved in the activities of clubs situated in South Kensington!
Informally, we have clubs that participate in sports like badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), hosted either at the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or at indoor sports facilities in nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
Beyond club activities and classes, we host numerous community-led events on campus. Silwood Park has its student council that organizes and oversees such events to foster a lively and engaging student life! Recently, we hosted the Silwood language exchange, where our largely international community gathered to exchange languages and cultures over several weeks. We also celebrated our annual Chinese New Year at the start of the year, where everyone came together to prepare dumplings and couplets to welcome the new lunar year. Additionally, we’ve had parties organized by the community celebrating global events (like Carnival) or simply parties thrown for the sake of celebrating.
However, my favorite campus event has to be the weekly pub quiz, arranged by our student community. It’s a part of Silwood culture that the losers of the quiz must set up the next one, and I can unabashedly say I hold the record for the highest number of pub quizzes set this year. Even though I’ve lost many pub quizzes due to my lack of trivia knowledge, there’s always great enjoyment to be had with wonderful company and a good pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Even though it’s a 30-minute stroll from the lively atmosphere of civilization (for instance, the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never seemed dull or deficient. In addition to a plethora of events and activities, we possess a warm and inviting community made up of students from various parts of the globe. We all cherish nature, our stunning campus grounds, and, significantly, enjoy each other’s presence. We’re a