Take one stuffy cubby hole in a popular Marlborough junior school, add one corridor by taking down a wall and what do you get? A new school library for the 206 children at Preshute School.

Preshute CofE Primary School has become a victim of its own success and is popular with parents over a wide area but it has nowhere to expand on its hemmed-in site in the High Street at Manton.

But where there is a will there is a way is the philosophy of headteacher Celia Hicks and, with the help of her staff and support from parents, she worked out that it would be possible to create a badly needed new library by knocking down a wall and joining up what she described as a cubby hole and a corridor.

Last week the Mayor of Marlborough, Andrew Ross, went along to the school accompanied by the town beadle, David Sherratt, and mace bearer Geoffrey Snelgrove to officially open the library. Mr Sherratt, a retired public school master, read the children a story from one of the books in the new library.

Mrs Hicks said the school was indebted to its parents association for raising £4,000 to pay for the library furniture and new books. The cost of taking down the wall came from school funds.

She explained why the school wanted a new library: “We had a grotty old book shelf in a corridor where there was nothing to encourage anyone to snuggle up with a book.”

Mrs Hicks thanked one of the parents, Tracy Fevyer, for spending days cataloguing the books in the new library and taking on the role of voluntary librarian.

Meanwhile Preshute school, said Mrs Hicks, continues to explore ways its facilities could be improved and find a way to create extra buildings.