While Durham School has persisted in some form or another since 1414, it has only been on its current site from 1844. It moved here from its place on the Palace Green site due both the interest from the University in creating a new lecture hall and a rise in the number of students at the school. The purchase of this land, then called Bellasis Field, was first proposed in February 1840, but it was not until the 4th December 1841 that the motion was officially cast to commission Anthony Salvin to begin plans for the school's construction. The cost of this was calculated in May 1843 as amounting to £2721 8s. Additional expenses came from the interior fittings of the School, as well as work on necessities such as the drains, gravelling, and the kitchen range. One listed expense was "on bringing down water in metallic tubes from a foundation in a field, to the West". These additional costs came to £663 13s, with a total cost of £3385 1s. This would be approximately £273,880 in today's money. 

As might be surmised, the news that the school was set to move was met with mixed reaction from the public. A letter addressed to the editor of The Durham Chronicle was sent by a "T.B." on the 27th December 1841, criticising the construction of new buildings and the selling of the Palace Green site to the university. "I am extremely sorry to hear that it is the intention of the Dean and Chapter of Durham to remove the Grammar School, from where it has been held for so many centuries, to another part of the Town," (began the letter) "in order to make way for a Lecture-Room for the University. I think it very unjust that an ancient Institution, such as the Grammar School, should be forced to submit to the dictates of a new-fangled University—that a school which has sent into the world so many eminent scholars should be removed for a University quite in its infancy… I myself was educated within its walls; and with many more of its old scholars, I feel most sorry for its intended demolition, especially as it is to make way for a University which, I am convinced, will be a considerable time in rising to the eminence which the Grammar School once possessed, and which, I feel persuaded, it will in a little time again acquire." 

 Strong words indeed. The editor of the Durham Chronicle responded by explaining the plan to move the School over the River Wear, although he also signalled his doubt on the matter. "Though the situation is pretty and romantic enough, and would be a snug retreat for 'learned leisure', it seems us to be inconvenient and ill-adapted for the purpose to which it is proposed to be devoted. We agree with out Correspondent in deprecating the removal of the present School." 

One argument from the anonymous T.B. asked how the new building would accommodate the King's Scholars. "Can they be expected to walk in their surplices from their new School to the Cathedral, even in the finest weather? And if a place near the Church has to be provided for them to assemble in every Sunday, I think that both inconvenience and expense might be greatly diminished by allowing the old School to remain." The centrality of the Cathedral to the King's Scholars has since diminished, but this was a genuine concern at the time. John Mitchinson, who attended the school from 1842 to 1851, recalled the solution: "We King's Scholars had a vestry assigned us, part of the undercroft of the Monks' dormitory, entered from the W. cloister alley."

If religious concerns impacted the School from a sacral perspective, the fact that the School was set to be built on the Bellasis farmland merited further consideration. The 4th October 1843 saw the second Annual Meeting of the Durham Agricultural Meeting take place on the site of the future school, with the use of the field being offered to the society gratis. "The field chose for the show is… immediately in front of the Grammar School, now in course of erection, and to which it is intended to be attached as a play-ground for the young gentleman." Horses and agricultural implements where placed in the upper half of the Playground, while the bulls and cows were at the lower end. "Steers and heifers, sheep and pigs" occupied the rest of the field. Prizes were awarded to the best short horns, while several of the horses, sheep, pigs and goats were sold. Of the agricultural implements, according to the 7th October 1843 issue of Yorkshire Gazette, "the Uley Cultivator (an implement which supersedes the common plough in preparing the land for barley) attracted most notice". A room was even set apart for refreshments in the under-construction School buildings. 

The School itself opened a year later, on Monday 14th October 1844. The Durham County Advertiser provided an overview of the new building: 

"It is built in that style of domestic architecture which commonly prevailed about the reign of our first James, and the school-room, with its projecting gable and long mullioned window, and the dormer windows and bell-turret of the other part of the structure, as seen from the south road and other neighbouring points view, combine in a picturesque and pleasing manner with the dark masses of trees which form its back-ground. The school-room has an open timber roof, is lofty and well proportioned, and is capable of containing about 200 boys. A spacious cloister unites this with the house which is henceforth to be occupied by the head-master, in which provision has been made for the accommodation of 40 or 50 boarders." 

The covered cloister, now the arcade, also served as an indoor play area for the boys during rainy days. Of note was the lack of proper classrooms; the 'Long Room', now Big School, was occasionally used for examination and teaching purposes, while the Headmaster's study was used for the education of the Sixth Form. While the Old Caffinites building was built in 1847 and used for teaching, specialised classrooms were only built in 1884 with the construction of the Science Laboratories.