With the many dialects around Scotland and England, it’s no surprise that there’s an unique word in the different parts of the countries to describe the passage between buildings. I hadn’t realised, before delving deeper into this, quite how many there are.

In Scotland and the North East, we have vennel, wynd, chare and close. I knew of wynd from my travels in Scotland but had never come across chare, which seems to be specific to Newcastle and the surrounding area.

In Northern England we have the ginnel, snicket, entry and tenfoot – a new one for me. Tenfoot is the term from Hull and relates to the specific width of an alley. Brilliant.

Heading to The Midlands we have jitty, twitchel and shut. In Shropshire the ‘ends’ were shut at night, hence shut.

In Southern England twitten, ope and alley or alleyway are used. Ope comes from Cornwall and is short for opening.

Living most of my adult life in The Midlands, I tend to use jitty. What’s your word for an alleyway? Maybe you have one not on my list; I’d love to know. And if anyone’s from Northern Ireland, Wales or further afield I’d be interested to know the word you use to describe an alleyway.