Each of the buildings was named after a notable figure in Christian theology; Thomas Aquinas, Basil Hume and St Catherine of Siena.

The college was established in 1979 from St Dominic's Independent Grammar School for girls which had been run by nuns of the Dominican Order.

Catherine Bathurst and her Sisters from Ghent set up a girls' boarding school in 1878 at the invitation of Cardinal Manning[2] in the Mount, Harrow-on-the-Hill, moving later to a new building in the convent grounds when day pupils were admitted.

In the mid-1970s it became apparent that the school could not continue in its existing form with constant pressure from the Local Authority to cease any grants.

Over the subsequent years the site has been developed to provide facilities for the students but with the consequent loss of open space.

This was part of the relatively sophisticated signal system, which was established to alert local militia and the Crown of the Spanish Fleet, or, Armada, which was spotted off the English coast in 1588.