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 bustling with wildlife and vegetation rarely observed at our other locations like South Kensington or White City. In many respects, they are correct – and every depiction of Silwood Park holds true!
As a representative of this lesser-known segment at Imperial, I wish to emphasize the student experience, activities, and community at our natural parkland campus located in Ascot, Berkshire.
Overview of Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s open-air laboratory, covering 77 hectares and showcasing environments such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” forest, and expansive grasslands. A simple search on iNaturalist, an app for cataloging and sharing biodiversity observations worldwide within an online network of naturalists, reveals that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus, while further investigation on eBird uncovers that 111 bird species have been documented thus far.
Remarkably, 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 renowned endeavors conducted on-site.
Campus life at Silwood Park
The campus predominantly accommodates postgraduate students focused on projects related to ecology, conservation, and evolution. Most of us belong to various clubs based at Silwood Park. Noteworthy examples include:
- Chicken Club – responsible for caring for the chickens raised behind our dormitories
- Book Club – who meet regularly to discuss interesting titles from their reading lists
- Gardening Club – who oversee the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – who arrange nature walks and conservation-oriented activities for students on Silwood Park Campus.
As part of the broader Imperial student community, many of us also join and actively participate in clubs based in South Kensington!
Casually, we have groups that partake in sports such as badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), either on the multi-use games area (MUGA) located on campus or at the indoor sports facilities in nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
Alongside club activities and classes, we host numerous community-led events on campus. Silwood Park boasts its own student council that organizes and supports such initiatives to ensure a lively and engaging student experience! In recent months, we held a Silwood language exchange, where our predominantly international community united to share languages and cultures over several weeks, and we also celebrated our annual Chinese New Year event at the beginning of the year, where everyone came together to create dumplings and couplets to usher in the new lunar year. We’ve also organized community parties celebrating global events (like Carnival), or gatherings simply for the love of celebrations.
However, my favorite campus activity has to be the weekly pub quiz, arranged by our student community. It’s part of Silwood culture that those who lose the pub quiz must organize the next one, and I can proudly say I hold the record for the highest number of pub quizzes set this year. Even though I’ve lost countless pub quizzes due to my limited general knowledge, there’s always a great time to be had with good friends and a refreshing pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Even though it’s a 30-minute walk from the lively pulse of civilization (such as the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never seemed dull or deficient. In addition to the multitude of events and activities, we enjoy a friendly and inviting community made up of students from around the globe. All