The parish priest of Lewisham taught the local children from the time of Richard Walker's chantry, founded in 1494, until the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII.

Colfe declared that the aim of the school was to provide an education for the boys from "the Hundred of Blackheath".

During the Second World War the school was first evacuated to Tunbridge Wells, Kent, and then to Frome in Somerset.

A period of inactivity on the Western front led about 100 boys to return to London, so the school was split for a few years.

Temporary buildings (rows of pre-fabricated concrete construction) were erected and the school came together again in 1947 under the headmastership of Herbert Beardwood MSc.

The book was further updated by Beardwood in 1972, to reflect both the move to the present campus at the east end of the playing fields, and the impact on the school of the machinations of early 1970s UK politics.

Although founded as a school for boys, girls have been admitted to the Sixth Form for over thirty years.

The Laurel building is next to the all weather playing field and doubles as several year 7 form rooms, with the other four dotted around the school.