Its driving force and primary sponsor was the Honourable Eleanor Douglas Pennant, one of the daughters of Lord Penrhyn, at a time when there was little high-quality secondary education available for girls.

Tuition was holistic: 'to provide, upon a sound and accurate system, a religious and useful education for the daughters of clergymen and professional men of limited means, and the agricultural and commercial classes generally'.

The census records that on 2 April 1911 there were three schoolmistresses in residence, together with thirty-one girls aged between eight and seventeen, a cook, a waitress, a housemaid, and a kitchen maid.

[4] Further increasing numbers resulted in a move to a purpose-built site in Llanfairfechan in September 1922, which consisted of separate accommodation, teaching facilities and chapel.

The site of the school near the centre of the town is now occupied by modern housing, but is preserved in the name St Winifred's Close.