Anglesey had been developing plans for comprehensive education as early as 1936 and this purpose-built comprehensive school is the earliest example of Anglesey's pioneering approach to secondary education in the post-war period, being the first such school in Wales and probably Britain. Begun in 1948, to the design of the architect Kenneth M. Raw under the auspices of county architect N. Squire Johnson, the foundation stone was laid by the Secretary of State for Education, D R Hardyman. The school opened officially in 1950 and building work was completed in 1952-3. It is named after the local doctor who first proposed that education on the island should be open to all.

It is a large spreading school, planned to a high specification that was not always sustained in its successors. The central features are a main hall approached by generous steps and a bare stone tower with a flush stone clock face and the proportions of a Cornish engine house. The link with pre-war civic building is clear and it has separate gyms for boys and girls, a hall and a separate canteen. It represents a clear expression of best-practice for post-war secondary educational building. The school is little changed, some schoolrooms were added to the rear of the school, and a modern theatre built in the late twentieth century.

Source: Haslam, Orbach and Voelcker, The Buildings of Wales: Gwynedd. Pevsner Architectural Guide (2009), page 94.

RCAHMW, October 2009.