The school was established in 1682 as a Free Grammar School by Hugh Gore, Bishop of Waterford and Lismore. The school was initially located at the historic Goat Street which has since been incorporated into Princess Way. The school later changed names and locations: Swansea Grammar School for Boys at Mount Pleasant (NPRN 31896), with the buildings designed by Thomas Taylor (1853) and later extended in 1869 by Benjamin Bucknall; the site was then shared with Swansea Intermediate and Technical School for Boys (later Swansea Technical College) from 1895. The buildings were destroyed by bombing during the Second World War and in 1952 the school was relocated to its current site at De La Beche Road, Sketty. Here, the school was renamed Bishop Gore Grammar School, an all-boys grammar school until 1970, before it merged with Glanmôr Grammar School for Girls and Townhill Secondary School to become Bishop Gore Comprehensive School from 1971. Building work first started before the war (c.1938) but put on hold due to hostilities.

The school was built by L. H. Samuel Ltd. of Swansea, and designed by Ernest E. Morgan, Borough Architect, who played a key role in the development of twentieth century Swansea. It was one of Morgan's last works before his retirement in 1947, and building started in November 1938 with about a quarter of the school built during Morgan's tenure. Construction was suspended for the duration of the war until in 1947 when the work resumed under the auspices of Morgan's successor, H. T. Wykes, Borough Architect - who was responsible for some re-designing and complete scheme of decoration - at a cost of £250,000. Whereas Morgan was a Classicist, Wykes was very much a Modernist. The school was designed for 720 pupils in a distinct figure 8 shape with two inner quadrangles providing green space and the main assembly hall striking through the centre. An additional courtyard and wing to the west comprising of separate boys' and girls' gymnasia and a swimming pool. A notable fetaure above the west courtyard, attached to the upper floor, is a protruding greenhouse. As well as teaching rooms and laboratories there were also two gymnasiums, a swimming pool, a lecture hall for 200 and a great hall for assembly and dramatic performances which could hold a thousand people. The school officially opened on 24 October 1952 by Sir Emrys Evans, Principal of Bangor University and the first Professor of Classics at Swansea University College. Field Marshall Viscount Montgomery visited the new school a few weeks later in December of that year. Extensions were built in the 1970s and 1990s.

M. Powel, RCAHMW. July 2023.

Sources: Investigator's photographic recording; The Bishop Gore School, Official opening booklet, County Borough of Swansea, 24 October 1952. D53/6/10 West Glamorgan Archives; B/S A7. 'Replanning and Reconstruction of Swansea town centre, preliminary rough sketches, by Ernest Morgan (Swansea Borough Architect)', West Glamorgan Archives; 'Volume containing building plans of schools in Swansea by Ernest E. Morgan, begun in 1915', West Glamorgan Archives, B/S E56; ‘Old traditions in the new Bishop Gore School’; ‘New Grammar School is Swansea’s Showpiece’; ‘Silent Floors in each corridor’, South Wales Evening Post, 24 October 1952, pp.1,6, 7; ‘Swansea New School Opened’, South Wales Evening Post, 25 October 1952, p.1; ‘Sir Emrys Evans opens the Bishop Gore School’, South Wales Evening Post, 25 October 1952; 'New Grammar School Building Opened', Western Mail, 25 October 1952, p.3.