LONG queues built up outside some of York’s top tourist attractions over the weekend as local people got in for free, thanks to the city’s annual Residents Festival.

Visitors lined all the way up the steps of the grassy motte to gain admission to Clifford’s Tower on Saturday afternoon and there were also long lines of people waiting near the entrances to other popular attractions including York Dungeon, the Jorvik Viking Centre and Castle Museum.

The 24th annual festival, organised by the tourism organisation Visit York, ran through Saturday and Sunday and offered more than 100 attractions, events and offers for anyone with a valid York Card or Student ID.

Visit York said the event was its way of saying ‘thank you’ for the warm welcome given by most residents to the city’s visitors.

One historic attraction, Fishergate Postern Tower, attracted dozens of visitors in its first hour on Saturday as volunteers from the Friends of York Walls celebrated a ‘lightbulb moment’ for the tower.

The building in Piccadilly had just had an electricity supply installed for the first time in its 500 years, said one of the volunteers, Martin Hetherington.

“We’ve had to use batteries until now,” he added.

Residents took the chance to climb several very narrow spiral staircases in the tower, find the garderobe, see a Tudor toilet, look for masons’ marks, operate a model portcullis, check out maps and inspect the timbers on the inside of the roof.

Meanwhile, visitors to York Explore Library,including 10-year-old Ella Hatfield, from Clifton. admired a model train made out of about 30,000 Lego bricks.

The 13-ft long train, made by Steve Mayes - also known as Lego architect Brick - was a replica of the Grand Central Adelante train

It was on display at the library as part of the festival, which was sponsored by the train operator Grand Central.