[4] Originally established for the training of ecclesiastics, it began as the seminary of the Church of the Holy Rude, founded in the reign of David I in 1129.

Stirling High School had an official opening ceremony on 26 June 2008, which consisted of a ribbon cutting by former pupil Kirsty Young.

It was built on a greenfield site of the old cricket club, and the current playing fields are to be sold off to housing.

The coat of arms shows Queen Margaret, richly habited and crowned bearing in her right hand a sceptre and in her left a book all proper between two trees of knowledge, to remind us of the remote 12th century, when a bishop of St. Andrews, in whose diocese Stirling was, gave to Queen Margaret's Church of the Holy Trinity of Dunfermline the churches of Perth and Stirling and their schools.

The wolf, couchant gardant, at the Queen's feet is taken from the "Small" Burgh seal, and reflects the early interest in education taken by the magistrates of the Royal Burgh, for later charters speak of scholam de Striuelin, and Scholam ejusdam ville, which suggest that the 'Church' school fairly soon became the town's school.

This building housed the classrooms for Mathematics, English, Modern Languages, Art, Classics; as well as a Gymnasium, and an Observatory on the roof.