Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet with Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
When most Imperial students consider Silwood Park, they picture a verdant, enigmatic, and green campus alive with wildlife and flora seldom found at other campuses like South Kensington or White City. In many respects, they’re correct – every depiction of Silwood Park holds true!
As a spokesperson for this lesser-known segment of Imperial, I aim to showcase the student experience, activities, and community at our natural parkland campus situated in Ascot, Berkshire.
An overview of Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s outdoor research facility, covering 77 hectares and encompassing environments such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” woodland, and expansive grasslands. A quick lookup on iNaturalist, an application designed for mapping and sharing biodiversity observations globally through an online community of naturalists, indicates that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus, and a further inquiry on eBird uncovers that 111 bird species have been cataloged at our location thus far.
Interestingly, Silwood Park also hosts numerous long-term field research initiatives, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being among the more prominent studies carried out on-site.
Campus life at Silwood Park
The campus predominantly houses postgraduate students focused on projects related to ecology, conservation, and evolution. Many of us participate in several clubs established at Silwood Park. Some notable ones include:
- Chicken Club – responsible for caring for the chickens raised behind our residence halls
- Book Club – meeting regularly to discuss books of interest from their reading lists
- Gardening Club – overseeing the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – organizing nature walks and conservation activities for students on Silwood Park Campus.
As members of the broader Imperial student community, many of us also engage in the activities of clubs based in South Kensington!
Additionally, we have informal clubs that participate in sports such as badminton, basketball, and pickleball (which happens to be my favorite!), utilizing either the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or the indoor sports facilities in nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
Alongside club meetings and classes, numerous community-led events take place on campus. Silwood Park possesses its own student council that organizes and facilitates these activities, guaranteeing a lively and stimulating student experience! Recently, we held 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 event at the beginning of the year, where everyone joined in making dumplings and couplets to welcome the new lunar year. We’ve also hosted community-organized parties celebrating festivities from around the globe (like Carnival), or parties simply for the joy of gathering.
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 quiz losers are tasked with organizing the next one, and I can proudly claim to have set the highest number of pub quizzes this year. Despite losing countless pub quizzes due to my limited general knowledge, there’s always enjoyable camaraderie to be had with great company and a nice pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my sanctuary away from home
Even though it’s a 30-minute stroll from the lively atmosphere of town (for example, the train station and the nearest village), existence at Silwood Park has never seemed dull or inadequate. Alongside the countless events and activities, we enjoy a friendly and inclusive community made up of students from all corners of the globe. We all cherish