British actress Jean Marsh, best known for her role as Rose Buck in the series Upstairs, Downstairs, has died aged 90.

Marsh's friend, director Sir Michael Lindsay-Hogg, said in a statement to the PA news agency that the actress "died peacefully in bed looked after by one of her very loving carers".

"She was as wise and funny as anyone I ever met, as well as being very pretty and kind, and talented as both an actress and writer,” he added. "An instinctively empathetic person who was loved by everyone who met her. We spoke on the phone almost every day for the past 40 years."

Marsh won an Emmy for outstanding lead actress in a limited series in 1976 for Upstairs, Downstairs (1971 – 1975) – a series which depicted the life of the servants ("downstairs") and their masters, the family ("upstairs") between the years 1903 and 1930, showing the slow decline of the British aristocracy during the Edwardian period, the First World War and the Roaring Twenties.

Marsh co-created the series with Dame Eileen Atkins, a show which is said to have partly inspired the hugely popular Downton Abbey series.