Written by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet with Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
When many Imperial students picture Silwood Park, they see a lush, enigmatic, and green campus rich with wildlife and plant life seldom found on other campuses like South Kensington or White City. In many ways, they are right—every depiction of Silwood Park is true!
As a representative of this lesser-known community at Imperial, I want to emphasize the student experience, activities, and community at our natural parkland campus in Ascot, Berkshire.
Introducing Silwood Park
Silwood Park functions as Imperial’s outdoor laboratory, covering 77 hectares and encompassing habitats such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” woodland, and open grassy areas. A swift search on iNaturalist, an app for cataloging and sharing biodiversity observations globally with a network of naturalists, shows that 1,436 species of plants, animals, and fungi have been recorded on campus. Furthermore, a query on eBird shows that 111 bird species have been documented on campus as well.
Interestingly, Silwood Park is home to several long-term field research projects, with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being among the more prominent initiatives conducted on-site.
Student Life at Silwood Park
The campus mainly caters to postgraduate students focused on ecology, conservation, and evolution projects. Most of us are actively engaged in various clubs based at Silwood Park. Noteworthy examples include:
- Chicken Club – taking care of the chickens raised behind our residential halls
- Book Club – meeting regularly to discuss books of interest
- Gardening Club – overseeing the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – organizing nature walks and conservation events for students on Silwood Park Campus.
As part of the broader Imperial student community, many of us are also involved and regularly take part in activities of clubs based in South Kensington!
Informally, we have clubs participating in sports like badminton, basketball, and pickleball (my personal favorite!), located either on the multi-use games area (MUGA) on campus or in indoor sports halls in nearby towns like Bracknell or Ascot.
Apart from club activities and classes, we host numerous community-led events on campus. Silwood Park has its own student council that organizes and facilitates such initiatives, ensuring a lively and exciting student life! In recent months, we’ve had the Silwood language exchange, where our predominantly international community shared languages and cultures over several weeks, and we celebrated Chinese New Year at the beginning of the year by making dumplings and couplets to welcome the new lunar year. We’ve also held community-organized parties celebrating international festivities (like Carnival) or simply out of love for gatherings.
Nonetheless, my favorite campus event is the weekly pub quiz, organized by our student community. It’s a Silwood tradition that the losers of the pub quiz must host the next one, and I can proudly claim the highest number of pub quizzes hosted this year. Even though I’ve lost many pub quizzes due to my poor general trivia skills, there’s always great enjoyment to be found with good company and a nice pint of beer.
Silwood Park: My Home Away from Home
Though it’s a 30-minute stroll from the lively atmosphere of civilization (e.g., the train station and the closest village), life at Silwood Park has never seemed dull or lacking. Beyond the various events and activities, we have a friendly and inviting community made up of students from all around the globe. We all cherish nature, love our beautiful campus grounds, and, even more importantly, appreciate each other’s company. We’re a close-knit community that relishes stargazing in the cold winter months on the open field next to our bar, watching the birds and mammals that share our space.