For as much as God's glory, his honour, and the wealth public, is advanced and maintained by no means more than by virtuous education and bringing up of Youth under such as be learned and virtuous Schoolmasters, whose good examples may as well instruct them to live well as their doctrine and learning may furnish their minds with knowledge and cunning, [I] have thought it good, not only to erect the said Free Grammar School, and to provide a reasonable and competent Stypend [sic] for the Schoolmaster of the same, and that in respect of the zeal that I have to God's glory, and for the love that I bear to my native country ... Sir John Deane (in the 16th century, the title indicated a presbyter with a university degree, rather than a knight; in today's language, he would be the Rev'd John Deane, MA) was born in Shurlach, between Davenham and the Rudheath district of Northwich, but rose to become Rector of Great St Bartholomew in Smithfield, London,[3] and Prebendary of Lincoln.

It was to be maintained by feoffees (a kind of charity), who were given land in Chester and the Wirral,[2] the result of Sir John's astuteness during the dissolution of the monasteries.

"[4] Sir John required his Grammar School to enforce the custom and allow the boys to play with bows and arrows, "to the end that the Schollars [sic] have not any evil opinion of the Schoolmaster.

Firstly, it received a generous 350th-anniversary benefaction from Sir John Brunner, allowing the governors to construct new buildings on its current riverside site.

[9] Thirdly, they decided that in view of the school's long-term financial weakness, the original mandate was best fulfilled by entering the state system.

It is a single site campus, parallel to the River Weaver; the college is around half a mile away from Northwich town centre, in the unitary authority of Cheshire West and Chester.