 The school is the most recently founded High School operating in Dumfries and Galloway, opening in 1971 to subsidize the rapid expansion of Dumfries's population in the 1970s, particularly affordable council developments in the Lochside and Lincluden areas where the school is located.The school was designed by architect Alexander Abercrombie Wilkie who was at the time chief architect of Dumfries County Council Architect and Master of Works Department responsible for all council developments in the area known at the time as Dumfries County (later incorporated into Dumfries and Galloway), it was Wilkie's last major architectural design before his death in 1972.The school is within the town border of Dumfries but it is not contained within the bounds of Dumfriesshire, it is instead in the historic burgh of Maxwelltown in neighbouring Kirkcudbrightshire from which the school inherits its name.