Assheton Gorton

Born: July 10, 1930; Died: September 14, 2014.

Assheton Gorton, who has died aged 84, created imaginary worlds and recreated historical ones for a string of celebrated British movies, including Get Carter (1971), the Ridley Scott fantasy film Legend (1985) and the acclaimed Scottish historical drama Rob Roy (1995).

He began by designing sets for student theatre, worked on numerous one-off plays in the early days of commercial television in the 1950s and was art director or production designer on 18 feature films between 1965 and 2000.

One of his most celebrated films was The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), for which he restored Lyme Regis to the way it might have looked in the mid-19th century, removing modern signs and road markings, and adding cobbles and flagstones, horses and carts. It brought him Oscar and Bafta nominations, though perhaps surprisingly he never won either.

For Rob Roy, he built the legendary 18th century outlaw's stone cottage at Loch Morar and a village of rudimentary stone cottages in Glen Nevis, although he had to rebuild it indoors at the Perth Equestrian Centre after heavy rain turned the original location into a mud bath and curtailed shooting.

"When you're doing a period picture on location, you do the research and arrive with images already formed in your mind," he said. "But the actual location imposes its own reality. With this kind of landscape, you can't work against it, you just have to go with it."

The film, which starred Liam Neeson, got good reviews, but was overshadowed by Braveheart, which was released around the same time.

Born in Leeds in 1930, Assheton St George Gorton was the son of a clergyman, who was headmaster of Blundell's School in Devon and subsequently Bishop of Coventry. He did national service in the army in Hong Kong. He wanted to be an artist, but was persuaded to pursue a more practical course first and studied architecture at Cambridge University.

He became involved in student productions there and subsequently attended Slade art school in London. His chances of a job with the BBC were blown when he told the interviewer that the set designs for a recent drama were rubbish, only to discover the interviewer designed them.

His first job in the screen industries was with ABC, one of the new commercial television companies. Early duties included drawing up a list of windows, doors and fireplaces available for sets.

He went on to design sets for dozens of instalments of Armchair Theatre in the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s, before graduating to films.

As well as being highly regarded for his historical recreations, Gorton was respected for his ability to imagine and build surreal and fantastical sets. For Legend, which featured a long-haired Tom Cruise, goblins and unicorns, he covered Pinewood's huge 007 stage with trees that were three times normal size, so the cast looked tiny. He then put mirrors on the walls so the forest looked like it went on forever.

Other credits include Revolution (1985) and the live-action Disney films 101 Dalmatians (1996) and 102 Dalmatians (2000).

He had a large studio in a converted barn at his house in Powys in Wales, where he did paintings, drawings and etchings, as well as film designs.

He is survived by his wife Gayatri, who is a potter, and three children, all of whom followed their parents into the creative sector.