A town within a town has been built by fans of the Pied Piper fairytale.

The German town of Hamelin has been built inside the historic Saxon town of Axbridge – in its museum to be exact.

Children from Axbridge First School each made a building to create their version of Hamelin, modelled on their home town's medieval square.

The work now sits inside King John's Hunting Lodge, along with its inspiration – a 1730 oil painting.

Replicas of the painting were given to the school to spark imagination in a project similar to the National Gallery's Take One Picture idea.

Teachers travel to London to study the 530-year-old Tobias and the Angel painting by Andrea del Verrocchio and artists from his workshop.

The story goes that an angel walked with Tobias in 15th century Florence and told him to cure his father's blindness with the heart and liver from a fish.

Axbridge's inspiration hangs inside the museum but whoever painted it is unknown.

Historian John Page said: "What the children have done is gorgeous and they are only five to nine-year-olds – it's splendid.

"Axbridge school was the first to finish and also did a play on the Pied Piper, but other schools are taking part, possibly in the autumn term."