Wynds definitions

The ` streeting ' of both upper and lower town is very tangled, and the old thoroughfares, mere ` wynds'.

In the narrow " wynds " the nobility and gentry paid their visits in sedan chairs, and proceeded in full dress to the assemblies and balls, which were conducted with aristocratic exclusiveness in an alley on the south side of High Street, called the Assembly Close, and in the assembly rooms in the West Bow.

Formerly it consisted of little besides High Street, with closes and wynds branching off from it; but now that it has absorbed Invertiel, Linktown and Abbotshall on the west, and Pathhead, Sinclairtown and Gallatown on the east, it has reached a length of nearly 4 m.

They forbade, for example, the building of streets wide enough to admit a cart, a regulation that accounted for the number of narrow wynds and alleys in the town.

"They tye three knottes," says old Richard Eden, "on a strynge hangyng at a whyp. When they lose one of these they rayse tollerable wynds.