Peter Cushing played Sherlock Holmes in one film about the hound

Historians hope it may hold the answer to a mysterious death involving Holmes' creator, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

A Devon historian has claimed Victorian journalist Bertram Fletcher-Robinson wrote the story and was later poisoned before being buried in Ipplepen.

Ipplepen Parish Council wants to represent the public on the matter.

Residents will now be given the chance to comment before any formal application is made to the Diocese of Exeter to exhume the grave.

Historian Rodger Garrick-Steele has said proof that Fletcher-Robinson was poisoned could be obtained by exhuming the body to search for traces of laudanum.

When the Hound of the Baskervilles book was published in 1902, Conan Doyle acknowledged the debt he owed to his friend Fletcher-Robinson for telling him of the hound legend.