We gathered together at Lancaster Priory and Parish Church on Saturday 4 July for our annual Founders' Day Service of Thanksgiving.

It is known that a school existed in Lancaster in the thirteenth century, but the first definite mention of the old Grammar School is found in a deed dated the 4th August 1469, when the Abbess of Syon granted to John Gardyner of Bailrigg, near Lancaster, a lease of a water-mill on the River Lune and some land nearby for two hundred years to maintain a chaplain to celebrate worship in the Church of S. Mary, Lancaster and to instruct boys in grammar freely, “unless perchance something shall be voluntarily offered by their friends”. In 1472, John Gardyner’s will made further provision for the endowment of the school, and also for William Baxstonden to “keep the said school” so long as he should be able to teach the boys. In 1682 the school was rebuilt and in 1851 was removed from the old site on the slopes by the Priory to the outskirts of the city, where it now stands. The title “Royal” was granted by Queen Victoria in the same year.