Where I live now in Cumbria we have a ginnel, but when I lived in Nottinghamshire, it was called a gennel (still with a hard "g"). I've always wondered whether the name is derived in some way from "tunnel". A "lonnin" here is just a narrow lane, ususally not suitable for vehicles and certainly not with a roof, which a ginnel always has - one of the houses on either side making use of the floor space above! We have swallows nesting in our ginnel every year - lovely, but they dive at us alarmingly every time we go through. Regrettably for them, we can't be discouraged as it's the only way to our back door! Susie