FLOODING in York dampened half-term for some of the city's tourist attractions - but others have attracted bumper crowds.

There were fears that families would stay away from York in droves, when last week's rising river water and over zealous national news reports combined to create the image of a city submerged.

Helen Douglas, attractions manager at The York Dungeon in Clifford Street, which was flooded in October 2000 but remained dry last week, said half-term week was slow but huge queues on Saturday promised a busy weekend.

She said: "It's been quite a slow week, and we do put it down to the floods, although the water did not affect us this time.

"We were inundated with calls from people worried about it, we even had to change our answerphone message to say that we were not affected by the floods.

"There has also been a campaign to get people back to the Dales and the Moors so that may also have had a knock-on effect."

At Jorvik, Coppergate, which has been the centre of the Jolablot Viking Festival, people queued for up to 40 minutes throughout the week.

A spokeswoman said: "It's been festival week and half term and we have been very busy

"We did have some people ringing up to ask if we have been affected by the floods, but all our events have been going ahead."

And James Sell, head custodian at Clifford's Tower, Clifford Street, said visitor numbers were up on half-term last year.

He said: "We've done very well over the week, it's been a busy one and we are really happy with it.

"We knew we were going to have a busy weekend with the Viking battles taking place here for Jolablot, and even though the half term week was earlier this year we still did a little bit better than half term last year.

"We had a few people phoning asking about the floods but it hasn't affected us."

Updated: 08:50 Monday, February 18, 2002