Andrew Sachs, best known as Manuel from Fawlty Towers, has died

Fawlty Towers star Andrew Sachs has died, aged 86.

The much-loved actor, best known for playing the Spanish waiter Manuel in the 1970s sitcom, passed away in a care home on November 23 and was buried on Thursday. He had been battling dementia for the last four years, and had been left wheelchair-bound and unable to speak towards the end of his life.

"My heart has been broken every day for a long time," his wife, Melody, told the Daily Mail. She explained that her husband had been diagnosed with vascular dementia in 2012.

"It wasn’t all doom and gloom," Mrs Sachs said, "He still worked for two years.

"We were happy, we were always laughing, we never had a dull moment. He had dementia for four years and we didn’t really notice it at first until the memory started going.

"It didn’t get really bad until quite near the end. I nursed Andrew, I was there for every moment of it."

Family and close friends gathered for his funeral and burial in North London on Thursday.