Brass seal of Friars School, known originally as ‘The free grammar school of Geoffrey Glyn, Doctor of Laws’, but later became known as Friars School due to the connection with the Black Friars.
The school was founded in 1557 by Dr Geoffrey Glyn from Anglesey who was a lawyer in London. He acquired the site of the friary in Bangor established by the Dominican Order in the 13th century. The friary closed after the dissolution of monasteries. In his will dated 8 July 1557 he left the property and endowments towards establishing a grammar school to his brother William Glyn, Bishop of Bangor and Maurice Griffith, Bishop of Rochester. They died the following year, but transferred the will to other parties who were able to fulfil Geoffrey Glyn’s intentions. The School was formally established when it receive letters patent from Elizabeth I in 1561. The school was maintained from income on endowments left by Geoffrey Glyn.
The seal depicts a seated man in a large chair holding grass in one hand and a rod with a ball in the other. There are two scholars in front of him in frock coats holding books. Around the edge is inscribed in Latin and translated means ‘Seal of the free grammar school in Bangor’.
In 1789, under John Warren, Bishop of Bangor, the school moved to a site closer to the High Street. It closed briefly in 1861 but reopened in 1866. In 1881, the school moved temporarily to Penmaenmawr to avoid a typhoid outbreak. Under the Welsh Intermediate Education Act 1889, the school was taken under the state system.
A new school was opened on the Ffriddoedd Site in 1900. Up until 1971 it had operated as a grammar school for boys but it then became a comprehensive school for boys and girls. It is now an English-medium school on the Eithinog site.