Students from exclusive Marlborough College have been found sniffing dangerous nitrous oxide gas in the town.

Although students from all around the world attend the college, police say those found inhaling N2O in a garden in Stonebridge Lane on Saturday live locally.

The public school, where boarders pay £30,000 a year, had broken up several days before the incident.

PCSO Jonathan Mills, who is investigating, said: “We will be speaking to the college when the students come back after the weekend.”

In July last year the Gazette exclusively revealed that police in Marlborough were cracking down on teenagers indulging in the craze of inhaling nitrous oxide, otherwise known as laughing gas, from mini cylinders made for the catering trade.

The gas is used in the catering trade for making whipped cream.

On Saturday police recovered a box of 400 N2O cylinders and other items used to inhale the gas.

PCSO Mills said: “Luckily only about 15 or 20 had been used. The box we seized were worth £100. It seems that these would probably have found their way onto the streets in town.”

Police were called to the overgrown disused garden in Stonebridge Lane after a neighbour heard noises coming from the property.

PCSO Mills said that when officers arrived “they found a group of Marlborough College pupils gathered there along with nitrous oxide cylinders.”

The label on the box indicated they had been bought on line from a catering company. It was addressed to a female with a Marlborough address.

Sniffing from the cylinders – which have several slang names including hippie crack, buzz bombs and whippets – can seem innocuous to the users but repeated use can cause heart failure and long term brain damage.

After N2O cylinders were found in the town and in Pewsey last year, government health expert Jennifer Kayne told the Gazette: “Administration of nitrous oxide without oxygen can be very dangerous. Hypoxia (oxygen starvation) can occur which may lead to loss of blood pressure, fainting and even a heart attack.”

Yesterday PCSO Mills advised calling 999 if anyone was seen inhaling the gas because the risk is so serious.