The story begins

There had been a school in the town since at least 1485. But during the Reformation the old Franciscan Friary School in Dorchester had been closed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries according to the instructions of Henry VIII when, in one week in 1539, all such establishments in Dorset were swept away by the King’s Commissioners. A royal grant provided for the continuance of a school in the town, although with its main source of income removed it probably would not have survived for long. The new school may have been founded, as were many others in the country, in the reign of Edward VI in fulfilment of his father, Henry VIII’s decree encouraging the widespread teaching of grammar. The first teachers in the Dorchester school could have come from the Priory, but in view of the current religious upheaval and the leanings of Dorchester to more independent thinking it is just as likely to have started as a completely independent Protestant venture.
The idea of the Dorchester Grammar School, known first as Dorchester Freeschool, was probably conceived soon after the Friary School closed.
This was a period of great vitality and change. All over the country the increasingly wealthy and independent middle classes were aiming for the advantages and position which had hitherto only been province of the upper classes - their ‘betters’. Dorchester and its environs were very much to the fore of the ideas prevalent at that time. The merchants and skilled craftsmen were becoming an increasingly influential part of society. They were determined that their children should not be denied the education enjoyed by others.
Plans continued to be made by the leading lights of the town. Thus, when Elizabeth had been the monarch for nine years, although relations with France and Spain were not good and religious beliefs were in a state of turmoil so that there was plenty to occupy the mind, the important project of the moment in Dorchester was the construction of the new school.
According to the last count, Dorchester consisted of about 368 houses. There was the Pillory, the Bull-stake, and the Pinfold in North Street. The Blind house, where disorderly persons were shut up for the night to quieten them down, was in the Cornmarket. It was later to be replaced by the Obelisk, the Town Pump, but that was a long time in the future.
The recorded story begins in 1567 when the tradesmen of the town started to erect the new building on the chosen site in South Street. It was possibly on property which had belonged to the Fraternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary - one of the three Fraternities of St. Peter’s church which had suffered with the suppression of the Chantries. The records show that such land in South Street was obtained through letters patent by the burgesses in 1548.