cambridge grammar schools
Cambridge House School was founded in 1910 by Jane Craig Currie and Sarah
Kinnear. Until 1929 it occupied a house in Audley Terrace, beside West Church.
It then moved to purpose-built premises on the other side of the Ballymoney
Road, where the car park now is. Essentially it was a girls’ school, although a
few boys attended until the age of 13. When Miss Currie died in 1936, her niece,
Patricia Owens, one of the first pupils (and a teacher since 1927), became
Headmistress, a post she held until 1969. In 1930 there had been 113 pupils, but
by 1963 there were over 350 and the school had outgrown its accommodation. That
year, governors took the decision to place the school entirely under the County
Antrim Education Committee (the forerunner of the North Eastern Education and
Library Board), thus entitling it to the funds necessary to build a new school
with the necessary accommodation. Cambridge House moved to its present site in
1973 and the following year Cambridge House Boys’ Grammar School opened on the
same campus. Under W.J.Wallace (1974-2001) and Miss A.Graham (1976-1999), the
two schools operated independently of each other until pupils reached Sixth
Form, when they were educated together. In 2001, the two schools amalgamated to
form today’s Cambridge House Grammar School, with a new uniform, badge and
motto. The school celebrated its centenary in 2010, and today we continue to
serve the Ballymena community as a co-educational grammar school where the
highest standards of academic excellence are achieved within a caring and
supportive environment.
