But experts have concluded that it is possible the Bard's skull was stolen by trophy hunters over 200 years ago.

Archaeologists using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) were able to look beneath the surface of what is widely thought to be the writer's grave - but they discovered 'an odd disturbance at the head end'.

Kevin Colls, who led the study at the site in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, said the discovery chimes with the story that the skull was stolen in 1794.

The survey findings feature in a Channel 4 documentary airing on Saturday and coinciding with the 400th anniversary of the Bard's death.

Mr Colls, archaeological project manager at Staffordshire University, said: 'We have Shakespeare's burial with an odd disturbance at the head end and we have a story that suggests that at some point in history someone's come in and taken the skull of Shakespeare.

'It's very, very convincing to me that his skull isn't at Holy Trinity at all.'

The radar survey also found that Shakespeare, his wife Anne Hathaway and other family members whose tomb markers lie alongside were not buried in a single vault deep underground but were laid to rest in shallow graves in the chancel.

Both Shakespeare's and his spouse's graves are less than a metre deep.

Furthermore, there was no evidence of any metal in the resting places, which experts have claimed may indicate the bodies were wrapped in shrouds and placed in the ground rather than interred in coffins.

Following on from the tomb study, researchers were also granted access to a skull in St Leonard's Church in the Worcestershire village of Beoley, 17 miles from Stratford, which is said to have been that of the playwright.

A detailed laser scan allowed experts to carry out a forensic anthropological analysis revealing that the Beoley Skull was in fact that of an unknown female aged in her 70s, when she died.

(Pics - Daily mail)