MAGDALEN College has submitted plans to extend its grade II listed library.

Magdalen says the library, once home to Magdalen College School, is “no longer fit for purpose”, with insufficient space for books and library users.

It is applying to build an L-shaped building that will sit in a sunken landscape garden.

The scheme would also involve “streetscape improvements” outside the college walls along High Street and Longwall Street.

Railings and parts of a boundary wall that were removed during the Second World War will be reinstated to “re-animate this important corner of Oxford’s cityscape”.

Parts of the Longwall Street wall that are in a poor state of repair will be restored.

The library was built between 1849 and 1851, beginning its life as a teaching room for Magdalen College School. The school, now on the other side of Magdalen Bridge, vacated the site in 1928 when the celebrated architect Sir Giles Gilbert Scott demolished all the ancillary school buildings and it was converted into the New Library.

Magdalen College senior bursar Charles Young said: “It is to do with creating space for our readers. Space for books is important but the priority is meeting the needs of scholars and the people who work there.”

The new extension would look over a new garden area with steps leading down to the cLongwall Quadrangle, where two silver birch trees would be removed.

Oxford City Council will decide on the plan.