Written by Clarence (Singapore), MSc Living Planet with Ecology, Evolution and Conservation
When most Imperial students think of Silwood Park, they imagine a luscious, mysterious and green campus filled with animals and plants that are not often seen in the likes of our other campuses such as South Kensington or White City. In many ways, they’re right – and every image pictured of Silwood Park is true!
As a representative of this less well-known community at Imperial, I’d like to bring to light the student life, activities and community found at our natural parkland campus in Ascot, Berkshire.
An introduction to Silwood Park
Silwood Park is Imperial’s outdoor laboratory, covering 77 hectares of land and comprising habitats such as freshwater streams, lakes, an “ancient” forest and open grasslands. A simple search on iNaturalist, an app where you can map and share observations of biodiversity across the globe with an online social network of naturalists, shows that a total of 1,436 species of flora, fauna and fungi has been documented on campus, and a further search on eBird shows that 111 species of birds have been documented on campus so far.
More interestingly, Silwood Park is also the site of many long-term field research projects with the Nash’s Field Experiment and the Blue Tit Project being two of the more well-known projects carried out on-site.
Student life at Silwood Park
The campus is home to mostly postgraduate students, interested in projects involving ecology, conservation and evolution. Most of us are interspersed through several clubs that are based at Silwood Park. Notable examples include:
- Chicken Club – who take care of the chickens that are raised behind our halls of residence
- Book Club – who gather regularly to discuss books of interest in their reading list
- Gardening Club – who manage the allotments in our community garden
- Conservation Club – who organise nature walks and conservation-based activities for the students on Silwood Park Campus.
Being a part of the larger Imperial student community, many of us are also members and regularly participate in activities of clubs based in South Kensington too!
Informally, we also have clubs that engage in sports like badminton, basketball and pickleball (my personal favourite!), which are based either on the multi-use games arena (MUGA) on campus or at the indoor sports halls locatedin nearby towns such as Bracknell or Ascot.
On top of club activities and lessons, we have many community-led events that happen on campus. Silwood Park has its own student council that organises and facilitates such activities, to ensure that we have a vibrant and exciting student life! In the past months, we have had the Silwood language exchange, where our largely international community came together to share our languages and cultures over the course of a few weeks, and we also had our annual Chinese New Year celebration at the start of the year, where everyone came together to make dumplings and couplets to usher the beginning of a new lunar year. We’ve also had community-organised parties commemorating celebrations from all around the world (such as Carnival), or parties organised for the sake of the love of parties.
My favourite campus event though has to be the weekly pub quiz, organised by our student community. It’s part of Silwood culture that the losers of the pub quiz will have to set the next one and I can unabashedly claim the highest number of pub quizzes set this year. Despite losing at numerous pub quizzes due to my poor knowledge of general trivia, there’s always good fun to be had with good company and a good pint of beer.
Silwood Park: my home away from home
Despite being located a 30-minute walk from vibrant vibes of civilisation (e.g. the train station and the closest village), life at Silwood Park has never felt mundane or lacking. On top of the numerous events and activities, we have a warm and welcoming community comprised of students from all over the world. All of us love nature, love our beautiful campus grounds and more importantly, enjoy each other’s company. We’re a close-knit community that enjoys spending our time stargazing in the winter cold on the open field located next to our bar, that enjoys looking at the birds and mammals which grace our room windows with their presence, and a community that enjoys spending time in the midst of other nature lovers.
Most evenings, I spend my time cooking with my dear friend from India who equally shares my love for Asian food and birding. We’re often joined by our friends who live a short minute walk away, in the neighbouring halls of residence. After dinner, we usually play board games or watch movies together. Living on Silwood Park Campus is quite literally the portrayal of a quiet, peaceful and idyllic life. In winter, this is accompanied by the warm, comforting embrace of the heaters located throughout our halls of residence and campus buildings.
Of course, these comforts are only possible with the help of the Student Accommodation team, who look out for us and make sure that we’re as comfortable as possible on campus. We also have a dedicated Student Experiences Coordinator who meticulously plans events for us to help us stay engaged and bonded as a campus community. They’re also responsible for bringing cute and fuzzy therapy dogs onto campus to support our wellbeing with occasional licks, warmth and affections from our beloved four-legged friends.
Reflecting on my time at Silwood Park
The past months I’ve spent living and studying at Silwood Park have been nothing short of amazing. Looking back, this is largely due to the strong network of friends and community that I have enjoyed spending time with. Even as I travel around the world for research or for leisure, I find myself excited to return to campus and share stories of my adventures with my friends.
Should you be blessed with the opportunity to study at Silwood Park, I hope that you’ll be able to enjoy such beautiful and strong connections as well. Take your time and enjoy our beautiful campus with your new-found friends, explore the charming and peaceful villages and parks surrounding our campus, and visit London occasionally to enjoy the dynamic culture and musicals on West End.
You can read more about my student experiences at Imperial in my student profile.
