ALAN Robertson, museum designer, writer and antiques and art dealer, has died at the age of 71.

Mr Robertson, of Huntington Road, York, who died on Thursday, was described today by his friend, Don Robinson, as a "man of many ideas who was always bubbling over with energy".

Originally from Scotland, Mr Robertson moved to York more than 30 years ago, and for several years he ran Discovery Antiques, in Minstergate. He published a book, The Insider's Guide to Antique Furniture, in 1985. He opened a new art gallery called Antica, in Clarence Street, last year.

But he was best known as the man behind a host of leisure attractions across the country.

Locally, he worked on The York Dungeon, The World of James Herriot, in Thirsk, Eden Camp, near Malton, and Flamingo Land, near Pickering.

He was awarded a national heritage award for the design of Hartlepool's £18 million Dockland Quay. Among his other projects were the Paris Dungeons, the Paris Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, part of the London Dungeon, Grimsby Fishing Museum and Whitehaven Rum Story.

Over the years, his business ideas also attracted much publicity. In the 1970s he sold hundreds of skipping ropes made from old Yorkshire mill bobbins to American customers. Other deals included selling off 1,000 organ pipes, and putting up 5,000 horse shoes for auction. He was also noted for his amusing work on the apparently real life of Aloysius Joyful Copperthwaite, an eccentric Victorian engineer, who he wrote a book about in 1986. Mr Robertson also ran The Strange World of Professor Copperthwaite, in Grape Lane, and The Amazing World of AJ Copperthwaite Esq, in Scarborough.

Mr Robinson said: "He was one of the few people I've ever known that nobody has had a wrong word for."

He said Mr Robertson had done a lot of work for charities, both local and national, and had been working up until his death.

Mr Robertson leaves his wife, Margaret, a daughter, Lucy, 24, and a son, Hamish, 21.

Updated: 10:43 Saturday, April 13, 2002