Religious Community
Clifton has chapel services and a focus on Christianity, but for 125 years there was also a Jewish boarding house (Polack's), complete with kosher dining facilities and synagogue for boys in the Upper School. This was the last of its kind in Europe. However, at the end of the 2004-05 school year, the Polack's trust announced that Polack's House would be closed due to the low numbers of boys in the house (although many pupils were turned down subsequently).
The school chapel was the inspiration behind Newbolt's poem Clifton Chapel, which starts:
CLIFTON CHAPEL
- This is the Chapel: here, my son,
- Your father thought the thoughts of youth,
- And heard the words that one by one
- The touch of Life has turn'd to truth.
- Here in a day that is not far,
- You too may speak with noble ghosts
- Of manhood and the vows of war
- You made before the Lord of Hosts.
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