Snickelways of York

Note: In May, I spent some time traveling through England. This is the first of maybe several posts from that trip.

In York, England a snickelway is a narrow passageway variously referred to as a"snicket", "gimmel" or "alleyway", the word being a combination of all of these. Mark Jones mapped the snickelways and wrote a guide book to them.

I took this photo as an example of a snickelway.

His book only includes the ones on the north side of the river Ouse. He created a path where you do not repeat your steps. This map nicely illustrates the circuitous route you need to follow to accomplish this.

This route takes a few hours to complete and if you're in York you will likely find other things you want to do. I covered almost the entire route because I am obsessed with these things. The route begins and ends at Bootham Bar, one of the city gates near the Minster, York's impressively large cathedral.

The middle area is where the most action is with a whole bunch of sneaky passageways and the Shambles (a medieval street whose buildings look like they could tumble over at any time).

Also in this area is Victor J's Bar, featuring their own "snicketway" map on the wall.

Jones fills the book with commentary,

very detailed instructions, various other current and historic facts about York and even advice for navigating "shopsnickets", passageways that require walking through stores and behaving as any normal prospective customer.