Welcome from Dr Diana Gilchrist
Bader College at Herstmonceux Castle Estate brings together academic study, residential learning, heritage, and conservation in a blended-learning environment.
Part of Queen’s University, Bader College is entering a new phase of academic and educational development. Building on its long-standing international and interdisciplinary foundations, the estate is evolving into a place where teaching, research, continuing education, and public engagement can come together in a meaningful way.
The estate itself plays an important role in this work. Alongside the 15th-century castle lie woodlands, wetlands, meadows, managed gardens, and a growing rewilding project. These environments support both academic activity and wider conversations on sustainability, conservation, heritage, and land stewardship.
What distinguishes Bader College is the way teaching and the environment are connected. Learning is not confined to classrooms. Students and faculty can engage directly with ecological systems, historical spaces, conservation practice, and place-based enquiry within a shared residential setting.
This creates opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration across environmental, social, historical, cultural, and policy perspectives, while supporting focused cohort experiences and international exchange.
Please find more details about what we offer at Bader College. I would be delighted to continue the conversation and discuss how this could work for your students and faculty. Please get in touch with us via the form on this site, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Kind regards,
Diana Gilchrist, PhD
Director of Academic and Educational Programmes
Bader College, Queen’s University
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Rewilding and environmental research opportunity
We are rewilding 350 acres, initiating baseline monitoring and creating opportunities for teaching and research focused on live environmental systems. Students will engage with real data, observe biodiversity recovery, land-use change, and ecosystem development, and contribute to long-term ecological data collection. Field-based modules will facilitate observation and analysis, while research will focus on biodiversity, flood mitigation, soil health, and human-nature interactions. This project supports ESG principles and the UN Sustainable Development Goals related to quality education, sustainable communities, climate action, and life on land.
Facilities and infrastructure
Teaching takes place within the castle and its surrounding buildings, with access to classrooms and to wet and dry laboratory spaces. Facilities include well-equipped teaching and conference rooms, offices, laboratories (wet and dry), dining spaces, accommodation, and a pub. IT support, catering, and on-site operational services, including printing and photocopying, are available in the castle, where the offices are located.
Students are accommodated on-site with full board, helping to keep day-to-day arrangements simple and consistent. Faculty accommodation is also available, allowing you to remain close to your cohort throughout the programme.
Integrated academic residency
Your cohort will enjoy a truly integrated academic residency with comfortable, on-site accommodation just a short walk from the castle through beautiful grounds. Our dedicated spaces within the castle walls range from intimate seminar rooms for 10 to larger teaching spaces accommodating up to 110 students. With full catering options supporting both short and extended stays, Bader College is perfect for those wishing to engage students through place-based and applied learning.
In particular:
- Interdisciplinary programmes that bring together environmental, social, and historical perspectives.
- Field schools and short-term intensives are typically delivered over one to six weeks.
- Capstone experiences and research-led teaching that require focused, high-contact delivery.
- Lab-based or technical courses that benefit from access to both facilities and field environments.
- International academic experiences delivered without the need to establish your own infrastructure.
Our model is particularly well aligned with departments working across environmental science, geography, sustainability, architecture, history, archaeology, and related disciplines.
Interdisciplinary teaching in practice
The residential model enables faculty from different disciplines to work together in a shared environment, creating opportunities to connect environmental, historical, material, and policy perspectives within individual sessions or across a programme.
Bader College at Herstmonceux Castle Estate, with its combination of managed landscapes, areas of ecological change, and a rich historic environment, supports this educational model. Students can examine how these systems interact and how human decisions continue to shape them—bringing an interdisciplinary approach that feels natural rather than constructed.
Next Step
If you are considering teaching at Bader College, the next step is a brief conversation with us.
You can outline your academic approach, and we can explore how it would work in practice on the estate. From there, we can map your requirements to the site and begin shaping a delivery plan.
To explore how your programme could run at Bader College, contact: bc.academic.education@queensu.ca
During my time at Bader College, I built key partnerships in London, across the UK, and throughout continental Europe, significantly expanding my professional and academic network. I found there is no better place than Bader College at Herstmonceux Castle to position oneself for establishing and expanding global collaboration, broadening research partnerships, and sharpening one’s writing in a peaceful yet invigorating place of academic excellence.
Beth Richan
Director Global Health, Queen's University, Ontario