Authored by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet with Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
When many students at Imperial think about Silwood Park, they picture a vibrant, enchanting, and green campus brimming with wildlife and flora not typically found at other locations like South Kensington or White City. In numerous aspects, they’re correct – and every depiction of Silwood Park holds true!
As a spokesperson for this lesser-known faction at Imperial, I would like to shed light on the student experience, activities, and community within our natural parkland campus located in Ascot, Berkshire.
An overview of Silwood Park
Silwood Park functions as Imperial’s outdoor research hub, covering 77 hectares and consisting of ecosystems such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” woodland, and expansive meadows. A basic search on iNaturalist, an application used for cataloging and sharing biodiversity discoveries worldwide with an online network of naturalists, displays that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus, and an additional inquiry on eBird indicates that 111 bird species have been noted on our grounds to date.
Interestingly, Silwood Park is also the location of numerous extensive field research initiatives, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project standing out as two of the more prominent studies conducted on-site.
Student experience at Silwood Park
The campus primarily hosts postgraduate students engaged in projects related to ecology, conservation, and evolution. Most of us belong to various clubs based at Silwood Park. Some noteworthy examples are:
- Chicken Club – which takes care of the chickens raised behind our residence halls
- Book Club – which meets regularly to discuss interesting novels from their reading list
- Gardening Club – which oversees the plots in our community garden
- Conservation Club – which organizes nature walks and conservation-focused activities for students at Silwood Park Campus.
As members of the larger Imperial student community, many of us also engage in activities of clubs situated in South Kensington as well!
Informally, we boast clubs involved in sports such as badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), 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 a variety of community-led events on campus. Silwood Park has its dedicated student council that organizes and manages such events, ensuring a lively and engaging student experience! Recently, we held the Silwood language exchange, where our predominantly international community united to share languages and cultures over a few weeks, and we celebrated our annual Chinese New Year event at the beginning of the year, where everyone joined in to prepare dumplings and couplets to usher in a new lunar year. We’ve also enjoyed community-organized parties celebrating various global festivities (like Carnival), or simply parties thrown for the joy of celebration.
My favorite campus event, however, is undoubtedly the weekly pub quiz, organized by our student community. It’s a Silwood tradition that the losing teams of the pub quiz are responsible for setting the next one, and I can proudly say that I have coordinated the highest number of pub quizzes this year. Despite consistently losing numerous pub quizzes due to my limited grasp of general knowledge, there’s always ample enjoyment to be had with great company and a refreshing pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my second home
Even though it’s situated a 30-minute walk from the lively bustle of civilization (such as the train station and the nearest village), life at Silwood Park has never felt dull or uninspired. In addition to the many events and activities, we have a friendly and inviting community made up of students from across the globe. We all share a passion for nature and cherish our stunning campus.