IN 1879 the local paper would have recorded the founding of Thornbury Grammar School and in the following year would have reported the opening of the first building on the new Gloucester Road site.

In 1869 a report into the quality of senior level education in Thornbury was highly critical of the two schools then existing. These were the Free Grammar School in Castle Street and Attwells' Free School in St. Mary Street.

As a result of this report, and after nearly ten years of deliberation (or just inaction), a plan was agreed to merge the two schools into one and to form the Thornbury Grammar School, which came into being in 1879.

A new site was secured, in what is now the Gloucester Road in Thornbury, and the first building of the new school was opened in 1880.