St. Bees School is a boarding school for boys and girls aged 4-18 in St. Bees, a West Cumbrian village. It was started in 1583 by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal as a boys' "free grammar school". The term 'free' did not mean that the school didn't charge the students, but that the school wasn't ruled by the Church. In 1976 the school became open to girls. The school grounds are about 250 acres (1,000,000 m2).