Clare
It’s strange how quickly three years can pass. But in Clare’s 700th anniversary year, the class of 2026 is proud to have added its own small chapter to our College’s long and storied history. It is bittersweet that we are leaving Clare as it enters its ‘post-scaffolding era’, yet there is something fitting about a College and its graduates embarking on new beginnings at the same moment. Whether we’ve been dancing at Clare Jazz in the warmth of Cellars, whiling away an afternoon in the Fellows’ Garden half-listening to punt guides recount the grisly fates of Lady Clare’s husbands, making memories in the Great Hall over a formal or two, or haunting the FML in the small hours before a deadline, it’s fair to say that we've lived our three years at Clare to the fullest.
People come here from all walks of life, but it is our distinct sense of community that has made Clare feel like home. The boat club was
on the water before most had opened their curtains, with cries of ‘Yeah Clare’ and ‘Yellow Fire’ reverberating across the Cam.
The football club’s inspiring run to the semi-finals of Cuppers was watched with fervent passion, with Clareites making their presence known throughout from the sidelines. Clare Actors have given us the May Week play to look forward to each year, and through it all, the unmistakable tones of the choir drifting from Chapel serve as a reminder that you are somewhere rather special.
Nearly seven hundred years ago, Lady Clare believed so deeply in the ‘precious pearl of learning’ that she provided this College the patronage it needed to endure. We leave having found our own version of that ‘pearl’; not just in the academic, but in the friendships forged, experiences lived, and the people we have quietly become, somewhere between matriculation and now.
Max Eshelby, History (UCS President, 2025-26)
