It was founded in 705 AD by St Aldhelm and, following the dissolution of the monasteries, re-founded in 1550 by Edward VI, making it one of the oldest schools in the United Kingdom.

[7] Anglo-Saxon masonry survives in the Beckett Room, below the school library, a reminder that Sherborne continues to occupy part of the Saxon Cathedral to which it owes its foundation.

That Alfred's son, later Bishop of Sherborne, was also educated at a cathedral school (in Winchester following its recovery by Wessex) is regarded as additional presumptive evidence in support of the claim.

A beautifully engrossed Royal Charter was sealed on 13 May 1550, under which the school was to have a headmaster and usher for the education of boys, and a board of twenty governors under a warden.

When Edward VI re-founded Sherborne, he granted the school an endowment of valuable lands which belonged to abolished chantries in the churches of Martock, Gillingham, Lytchett Matravers, Ilminster and the Free Chapel of Thornton in the parish of Marnhull.

[8] The lands with which the chantries were endowed are predominantly in Dorset, specifically in the manors of: On 24 October 1851 Edward Digby, 2nd Earl Digby, owner of nearby Sherborne Castle, gave to the governors of the school a plot of land,[10] measuring just under 1+1⁄2 acres (0.6 hectares), including the remaining old monastic buildings, though these had been converted for use as a silk mill c1740.

The old monastic buildings were restored and converted into a chapel, dormitories, big schoolroom, and classrooms in 1853,[10] and over time the quadrangle, as can be seen today, was gradually formed.

In 1873, the governors bought a further 8 acres (3 hectares) or so from Lord Digby's trustees,[11] allowing the creation of additional facilities and further prospects for the school.

The old Abbey Silk Mill (not to be confused with the silk mill in the old monastic buildings) was converted into a workshop, concert room, museum, armoury, and laboratories, and a swimming bath was dug nearby, followed by the building of the fives courts the following year.

The sanatorium in was completed in 1887, and the next big construction project was the Carrington Building in 1910, incorporating and replacing (in part) the old Abbey Silk Mill, to be used as new laboratories and classrooms.

[12] Over the years many more construction projects were completed, including the sports centre in 1974, the largest most recently being the Music School in 2010.

[14] In 2005, 50 of the country's leading independent schools, including Sherborne, were found guilty of running an illegal price-fixing cartel, which had allowed them to drive up tuition fees.

The trust was designed to benefit pupils who attended the schools during the period in respect of which fee information was shared.

She wrote to John Vickers, the OFT director-general, saying, "They are not a group of businessmen meeting behind closed doors to fix the price of their products to the disadvantage of the consumer.

While both are single-sex boarding schools, a programme of shared academic, co-curricular and social activities enables Sherborne boys and girls to mix and work together.

Sherborne is one of only four such remaining single-sex boys' boarding independent senior schools in the United Kingdom (the others being Eton, Harrow and Radley).

It has been extended several times: eastwards in 1853; westwards in 1865; northwards, to create the north aisle, in 1878 and; eastwards in 1881 (into the headmaster's building); westwards and northwards in 1922 to extend the nave, and create the antechapel which has the names engraved of those who died in World War I and World War II.

The Side Chapel, created by knocking through into the School House Studies (now the headmaster's building) in 1881, was dedicated to St Andrew in 1988 and has its own altar.

[32] The Old Schoolroom (OSR) is the oldest of the buildings specifically designed for school use and was the original "scholehouse" built in 1554, on the site of an earlier "schole".

The windowsills of the OSR are made out of old school desks and are covered, on both upper and under faces, with historic graffiti of boys' names, the earliest known being from 1698.

[37] It was brought into the school's use in 1550, as part of the Royal charter, and has since been used as a brewery, laundry, vegetable store, lumber shed, boot room, and ravens' nook.

It performs annually, and concert venues have included Sherborne Abbey, Wells Cathedral, and Poole Lighthouse.

[51] Sherborne holds its own rock festival in the heart of its historic grounds, aptly named "Concert in the Courts", featuring Shirburnians and boys and girls from local senior schools, performing and spectating.

[60] On 30 May 2010, Dorset played Somerset, which included international players such as Craig Kieswetter in a friendly Twenty20 fixture on the ground.

What follows is a selection of more recent notable Old Shirburnians: Notable Old Shirburnians in academia include mathematician, cryptanalyst and father of artificial intelligence and the first modern computer Alan Turing; headmaster of Eton College, master of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge and vice-chancellor of Cambridge University Michael McCrum; master of Balliol College and vice-chancellor of Oxford University Sir Colin Lucas; vice-chancellor of Durham University and master of Magdalene College, Cambridge Sir Derman Christopherson; literary scholar Sir Malcolm Pasley; historian Hugh Thomas, Baron Thomas of Swynnerton; mathematician and philosopher Alfred North Whitehead; chemist, curator of the Museum of the History of Science, Oxford and director of the Science Museum Sherwood Taylor; provost of Worcester College, and vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford Francis John Lys; historian and master of Peterhouse, Cambridge Harold Temperley; neurologist John Newsom-Davis; prehistorian and archaeologist Richard Atkinson; professor of European Studies at Oxford University and author Timothy Garton Ash.

Notable Old Shirburnians in the law include High Court Judge Sir Antony James Cobham Edwards-Stuart, senator of the College of Justice and Principal Commercial Judge in the Court of Session in Scotland Angus Glennie, Lord Glennie, high court judge in colonial India and prolific author Charles Augustus Kincaid, Solicitor General for Scotland and Lord Advocate William Milligan, Lord Milligan, and solicitor and author Sir Dermot Turing.

Notable Old Shirburnians in politics include Alan Lennox-Boyd, 1st Viscount Boyd of Merton, Charles Beauclerk, Earl of Burford, Education Minister Sir Christopher Chataway, Michael Marsham, 7th Earl of Romney, William Cecil, 2nd Earl of Salisbury, The Right Honourable The Lord Thomas of Swynnerton, Thomas Buchanan, Robert Key, Paul Tyler, Liberal Party politician John Pardoe, Conservative Party politician Denzil Kingston Freeth, Liberal Party politician Sir Cecil Algernon Cochrane, writer, farmer and father of Boris Johnson, Stanley Johnson, Liberal Democrat politician Andrew Duff, and journalist, author and political commentator Peter Oborne.

John le Carré), Anthony Berkeley Cox, John Cowper Powys, Jon Stock, literary scholar Malcolm Pasley, Robert McCrum, Tim Heald, novelist Roger Norman, journalist, historian and biographer Brian Moynahan, and Warren Chetham-Strode.

Old Shirburnians who have come from overseas include Emir of Qatar Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani (Sherborne International College), king of Swaziland King Mswati III (Sherborne International College), and Regent and Crown Prince of Pahang, Malaysia Tengku Hassanal Ibrahim.

Five Old Shirburnians have been awarded the Victoria Cross, to whom a memorial plaque was commissioned, the unveiling of which took place in the School Chapel on 19 September 2004.