Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet with Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
When the majority of Imperial students envision Silwood Park, they picture a verdant, enchanting, and green campus populated with wildlife and plants rarely found at our other locations like South Kensington or White City. In many respects, they’re correct – every depiction of Silwood Park holds true!
As a voice for this lesser-known community within Imperial, I wish to shine a spotlight on the student experience, activities, and culture at our natural parkland campus in Ascot, Berkshire.
An overview of Silwood Park
Silwood Park serves as Imperial’s outdoor research facility, encompassing 77 hectares and featuring habitats such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” forest, and open meadows. A quick look on iNaturalist, a platform for mapping and sharing biodiversity observations worldwide with a network of naturalists online, reveals that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus, with an additional search on eBird indicating that 111 bird species have been noted thus far.
Additionally, Silwood Park is the venue for numerous long-term field research initiatives, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being among the more recognized studies undertaken on-site.
Student life at Silwood Park
The campus predominantly hosts postgraduate students engaged in projects related to ecology, conservation, and evolution. Most of us are members of several clubs based at Silwood Park. Notable examples include:
- Chicken Club – responsible for the care of the chickens raised behind our halls of residence
- Book Club – who meet regularly to discuss books that pique their interest from their reading lists
- Gardening Club – tasked with maintaining the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – who coordinate nature walks and conservation-oriented activities for students on Silwood Park Campus.
As part of the larger Imperial student community, many of us are also involved in and actively participate in clubs based in South Kensington!
Informally, we have clubs that partake in sports such as badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), which are hosted either at the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or in the indoor sports halls of nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
Alongside club activities and lectures, we host various community-led events on campus. Silwood Park boasts its own student council that organizes and facilitates activities to foster a vibrant and exciting student life! Recently, we held the Silwood language exchange, where our largely international community united to share languages and cultures over a few weeks, and we also celebrated our annual Chinese New Year celebration at the start of the year, where everyone gathered to make dumplings and couplets to welcome in the new lunar year. We’ve also hosted community-organized parties to celebrate global festivals (such as Carnival) or just parties for the sheer joy of celebration.
My favorite campus event, however, has to be the weekly pub quiz, organized by our student community. It’s a Silwood tradition that the losers of the pub quiz are responsible for setting the next one, and I can proudly admit to setting the highest number of pub quizzes this year. Despite losing countless pub quizzes due to my limited knowledge of general trivia, there’s always great enjoyment to be found with good company and a refreshing pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my sanctuary away from home
Even though it’s situated a 30-minute stroll from the lively atmosphere of civilization (e.g., the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never seemed mundane or deficient. Alongside the many events and activities available, we have a friendly and welcoming community comprised of students from across the globe. All of