Queen Victoria came to Fort Pitt on three separate occasions in 1855 to visit soldiers wounded in the Crimean War,[1] and in 1860 it was selected by Florence Nightingale as the initial site for the new Army Medical School, before this moved to Netley near Southampton in 1863.

[2] Continuing as a garrison hospital, King George V and Queen Mary visited servicemen wounded in the First World War there in October 1914.

In 1929 the Education Board therefore bought Fort Pitt, then empty, from the War Office and the school moved there from Elm House.

Here it taught a range of technical and vocational subjects open to girls, including typing and office duties, cooking, needlework and, from 1941, pre-nursing courses.

During the Second World War the school remained at Fort Pitt, although numbers were reduced as many children were evacuated.

[7] In 1973 a fire destroyed part of the school, mobile classrooms being installed until new accommodation was built.

Many of the original outer fort walls remain, although part of the old hospital building was destroyed in the 1973 fire.

[16] For pastoral, motivational and competitive purposes, Fort Pitt divides its students into six houses.