Top American mountaineer Eric Simonson will retrace George Mallory's fatal climb up Everest in search of the camera which could unravel one of mountaineering's greatest mysteries.

Did Mallory, who was brought up at Rathgate House near Mobberley Church, reach the summit of the world's highest peak 29 years before Hillary and Tenzing made the official record books?

"The team making the ascent do believe that," said a spokesman for BBC Bristol, who are co-producing a documentary on the adventure. "And they think they're going to make a discovery, but there are so many factors involved."

The history books record that Mallory - credited with uttering the response 'Because it's there' when asked why he wanted to climb the 29,000ft peak - and his 22-year-old colleague Andrew Irvine died on the north face of Everest in 1924 within reach of the summit.

Simonson hopes to find the frozen remains of one of the men, rumoured to have fallen on a snow terrace 2,500ft below the summit, and a vest pocket Kodak Autographic camera which both climbers carried at all times.

Kodak have reportedly said the extreme cold would have preserved the film across 75 years.

If the pictures show the men on the summit it would rewrite the record books.

"He has been forgotten," said one Mobberley resident.

Rector's son Mallory, commemorated with a stained glass window and plaque in Mobberley Church, was born in Mobberley in 1886 and made two attempts on Everest before the climb which killed him.

Mallory's sister was believed to have married into the Longridge family, who owned Kilrie, and older Mobberley residents remember her singing in the church choir.

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