A YORK man barricaded himself in his tea shop for three days as the River Ouse rose higher and higher at the peak of this week's floods.

Nick Askey, owner of the Motor House Tea Rooms, on Skeldergate Bridge, glued shut the door of the premises and used silicone to seal it closed.

He only emerged once during a three-day vigil in which he slept next to the door so any water coming into the shop would wake him up and he could start bailing it out.

Fortunately, not a drop got into the shop, despite the water, at its height, lapping half a foot up the outside of the door.

Nick said: "It was about 7am on Monday when I found out there was going to be a major flood. I shot out of bed and went down to the shop. I ordered some sandbags from the council and the water was up to the top step outside the door already."

After building a wall of sandbags outside the shop, he glued the door shut, put silicone around it and settled in.

"It wasn't too bad," said Nick. "We had to shut the shop at lunchtime on Sunday because of the water so we had a lot of spare food.

"So I just sat in the shop munching my way through it."

He said that in the end, though he had to siphon water out of the shop cellar and will have to re-paint the door, his property was otherwise left undamaged by the floods.

Nick was hoping to re-open the Motor House today.

picture: ABOVE: Nick Astley who used sealant to barricade himself into the Motor House Tea Rooms on Skeldergate Bridge, York, and stayed there for three days until flood waters subsided. LEFT: The Motor House Tea Rooms

Pictures: Mike Tipping