Surveyors have begun scouring the land around the ruins of Reading Abbey, as part of a search that could unearth the missing remains of King Henry I.

Investigators began using ground-penetrating radar on Friday, in a bid to outline the extent of the grounds of the ruined abbey, in a search that could see the body of a second English king discovered beneath a car park.

Henry, who died in 1135, reportedly from a “surfeit of lampreys”, is thought to have been buried alongside his second wife, Adeliza, under the high altar of the abbey, which was largely destroyed during Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries.