Avebury Primary School is to close in July because of plunging pupil numbers.

The school, founded more than 150 years ago, now has 19 pupils, but only 11 children signed on for the next academic year starting in September.

Parents say they were kept in the dark about the school's fate until Friday, when they received letters outlining the closure plans.

They then had a heated showdown meeting with governors on Tuesday night, saying they were given an assurance only at Christmas that the school would survive by linking with nearby Kennet Valley School and sharing a headteacher.

Mum Lesley Boyd-Cox, from Compton Bassett, has an eight-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son at Avebury. Both are the only children in their year group.

She said: "I am absolutely disgusted.

"I am going to press for a public meeting with the community, the parish council and with Michael Ancram (the Devizes MP)."

Her sentiments were echoed by Shelley Smith, from Winterbourne Monkton, who has a five-year-old daughter at Avebury and a son, four, who was due to start in September.

Mrs Smith said: "We had been led to believe all along that the school would stay open until we got letters last Friday. I think it's terrible, it's disgraceful that it has come to this."

Mum Louise Thompson lives in Devizes but works in Marlborough and drops off Naomi, ten, at the Avebury school each day.

She said: "We have not been told very much about what is happening. The last letter we had said the school would be federating with Kennet Valley."

Governors' chairman Alan Martin said every avenue had been explored in a bid to find a new way forward for the school, including federating with Kennet Valley.

However, Kennet Valley School has its own problems as it has been without a head teacher for more than a year.

There have been growing fears over the future of Avebury Church of England Primary School for the past four years.

It was a thriving school with 45 children in 2003 but numbers started to fall when new headteacher Debra Tomlinson suffered increasing ill health and finally left.

There has been a succession of acting heads but as the future of the school became increasingly gloomy the governors were unable to recruit a new head.

Mr Martin said: "At the meeting with parents on Tuesday they were told of the many initiatives governors had taken during the last four years in an attempt to ensure the continued viability of the school.

"Despite governors' attempts to federate or amalgamate with a neighbouring school and with declining numbers on roll, governors were faced with recommending closure."

He said governors had taken the decision to ensure children attending the school continued to receive a quality education elsewhere and because the staff knew they were facing an uncertain future.

The school site is owned by the Salisbury Diocese, which will decide its future.

A Wiltshire County Council spokesperson said the closure of any school was sad.

He added: "Unfortunately, with only 11 pupils forecast for this September, the governors, county council and Salisbury Diocese have reached the conclusion the school is not sustainable.

"County council staff are working with parents and other local schools to ensure pupils can start in a new school in September."

But some parents pointed out that the Avebury school was more than a building where their children were taught.

It has been the hub of village life, a place where parents meet twice a day.

Parents said their hopes for the school's future were kept high when a new covered play area was opened there only a month ago.

Mandy Giles from West Overton whose daughter Sian, 11, goes up to St John's after the summer, said: "The saddest thing is that this has been such an amazingly good school and Sian has been very happy here."

One of the village's older residents, Heather Peak-Garland, has lived in Avebury all her life - more than 70 years - and went to the school when it was in the Victorian building now used as the Social Centre.

She said news that the school was to close was only just getting around the village to the shock and dismay of residents. "We knew that the numbers have fallen off but I have no idea why," she said.

Miss Peak-Garland said she had noticed fewer families in the village with young children. "We used to get as many as 20 or even 25 playing outside in the street but that is a thing of the past," she said.