 Founded in 1904 as County School for Boys and Girls, the school was originally mixed-sex but moved into the present building in 1934 from Frith Road, now the home of Dover Grammar School for Girls.Despite the severe economic circumstances of the depression, the founder and first headmaster of the school, Frederick Whitehouse persuaded the authorities to provide the funds for a new building in Astor Avenue.Whitehouse believed in the maxim often attributed to Winston Churchill that "we shape our buildings and our buildings shape us" and, architecturally, the school mixes both gothic and classical influences.