The earliest records of the School's existence date from 1320, but the school was re-founded in 1601 under the will of an Elizabethan merchant and Lord Mayor of London, Sir Wolstan Dixie, by his great-nephew Sir Wolstan Dixie of Appleby Magna, who came to live in Market Bosworth in 1608.

[1] The most distinguished of the School's former pupils is Thomas Hooker, founder of Hartford, Connecticut, known as the Father of American Democracy.

Samuel Johnson, moralist, poet and author of the famous dictionary, taught at the school in the mid-eighteenth century.

The Leicestershire Independent Educational Trust was formed in 1983, and four years later the school was re-opened as a selective, independent, day school for boys and girls of all backgrounds between the ages of 10 and 18.

Three years later the Junior School opened, moving in 2001 to its present premises, Temple Hall in Wellsborough.