The school was named after its neighbour All Hallows, a roadside chapel for travellers built sometime before 1327 and now the oldest existing secular building in Honiton.

The headmaster of the day, George Shallow, found a new site in the shape of a large Victorian country house with over 350 acres of land on the coast at Rousdon, a few miles to the West of Lyme Regis.

Sir Henry Peek was a governor of Holloway prison, and many of the floors were inlaid with mosaics created by the inmates.

The building was a few hundred yards from the cliff-edge overlooking the massive landslip from 1839 and had extensive grounds, even if the location was remote.

In the two decades after the Second World War the school gained a national reputation in shooting, attending Bisley on a regular basis and winning the inter-schools Ashburton trophy several times.

He stayed with the school all his life, ending up with a short spell in the headmaster's chair, and then in retirement raising funds.

He was one of several masters who devoted their lives to the school including G. S. Napier ('Nap') who spent over a hundred terms there after the First World War.