Prunella Scales has died at the age of 93

A statement read: "Our darling mother Prunella Scales died peacefully at home in London yesterday. She was 93.

"Although dementia forced her retirement from a remarkable acting career of nearly 70 years, she continued to live at home. She was watching Fawlty Towers the day before she died. Pru was married to Timothy West for 61 years. He died in November 2024.

"She is survived by two sons and one stepdaughter, seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.

"We would like to thank all those who gave Pru such wonderful care at the end of her life: her last days were comfortable, contented and surrounded by love."

Prunella was best known for her role as Sybil Fawlty - the bossy wife of John Cleese's hapless hotel owner Basil Fawlty - in the iconic 1970s BBC sitcom Fawlty Towers.

She was born in Surrey in 1932 and began her career as an assistant stage manager for the Bristol Old Vic theatre before making her mainstream breakthrough in the TV sitcom The Marriage Lines alongside Richard Briers in the early 1960s.

Prunella also earned a BAFTA nomination for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in Alan Bennett's play A Question of Attribution in 1991 and appeared in advertisements for supermarket Tesco for a decade from 1995 as the demanding shopper Dotty.

She also had roles as a snobbish socialite in the 1980s Channel 4 series Mapp and Lucia and as widow Sarah France in the ITV sitcom After Henry between 1988 and 1992.

Scales met her husband Timothy West whist filming the BBC television play She Died Young in 1961 and the pair went on to act together in the 1984 production Big In Brazil at London's Old Vic theatre.

The star was diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2013 although she and Timothy went on to feature in the Channel 4 series Great Canal Journeys from 2014 to 2019 - which followed the pair as they traveled via canals and narrowboats across the UK and Europe.

Prunella's declining health saw the couple depart the show in 2019, with West - who died last November at the age of 90 - explaining that her dementia had worsened in the final series and that she was losing her hearing.