History

Loughborough Grammar School is one of the oldest schools in the country with a history stretching back over five hundred years.

We were founded in 1495 by Thomas Burton, a prosperous wool merchant. He set aside endowments in his will to provide income for Masses to be said for his soul by a chantry priest in All Saints Parish Church, Loughborough. Such priests often established schools – and thus our tradition was born.

Many centuries later, in the early 1850s, demand for space motivated our move from the heart of the town into the leafy Walks and the beautiful Victorian gothic buildings that you can see today. Since then sensitive and award-winning architects have added to the original building, meticulously keeping to its original style. The existing splendour of our main school and its quadrangle is a testament to their painstaking work.

You can read this fascinating story at length in the Archives section within LGS Today. There is also an excellent coffee-table book in publication by Nigel Watson which details our complete history and includes many old photographs, maps and artist's impressions.