York's Snickelways — The Hidden Alleys and How to Walk Them

Every old city has alleys. York liked its own enough to invent a word for them.

What is a snickelway?

A portmanteau of snicket, ginnel and alleyway, coined in 1983 by local author Mark W. Jones in A Walk Around the Snickelways of York — and so instantly right that it stuck to the street furniture. A snickelway is a narrow public cut-through between streets: some medieval, some barely shoulder-width, most invisible unless you know to push on.

The ones worth finding

• Whip-Ma-Whop-Ma-Gate — technically York’s shortest street, with its strangest name, and the gateway into the network.
• Mad Alice Lane — the one the ghost walks love, named for a reputed 19th-century resident; dark, crooked, perfect.
• Coffee Yard — the longest, threading past Barley Hall; medieval York in about forty metres.
• The unnamed dozens — the point of snickelways is that the map is never quite complete.

Walk them free, or walk them told

The network costs nothing — our free self-guided evening route threads several of the best. What the guided version adds is the stories: York’s Snickelways Story Walking Tour holds 4.9/5 from 303 reviews at $20 — one of the highest-rated walks in the city — and knows which doorway is which, which the map cannot tell you.

Check the Snickelways tour