page_title: Alley
section_title: Scotland and Northern Ireland
hierarchical_section_title: Alley / United Kingdom / Scotland and Northern Ireland
caption_attribution_description: English: Tolbooth Wynd leads off the Royal Mile One of the narrow 'wynds' of Edinburgh, this one lies right under the Tolbooth House.
context_page_description: An alley or alleyway is a narrow lane, path, or passageway, often reserved for pedestrians, which usually runs between, behind, or within buildings in the older parts of towns and cities. It is also a rear access or service road, or a path, walk, or avenue in a park or garden.
  A covered alley or passageway, often with shops, may be called an arcade. The origin of the word alley is late Middle English, from Old French: alee "walking or passage", from aller "to go", from Latin: ambulare "to walk".
context_section_description: In Scotland and Northern Ireland the Scots terms close, wynd, pend and vennel are general in most towns and cities. The term close has an unvoiced "s" as in sad. The Scottish author Ian Rankin's novel Fleshmarket Close was retitled Fleshmarket Alley for the American market. Close is the generic Scots term for alleyways, although they may be individually named closes, entries, courts and wynds. Originally, a close was private property, hence gated and closed to the public.
  A wynd is typically a narrow lane between houses, an open throughway, usually wide enough for a horse and cart. The word derives from Old Norse venda, implying a turning off a main street, without implying that it is curved. In fact, most wynds are straight. In many places wynds link streets at different heights and thus are mostly thought of as being ways up or down hills.
  A pend is a passageway that passes through a building, often from a street through to a courtyard, and typically designed for vehicular rather than exclusively pedestrian access. A pend is distinct from a vennel or a close, as it has rooms directly above it, whereas vennels and closes are not covered over.
  
  A vennel is a passageway between the gables of two buildings which can in effect be a minor street in Scotland and the north east of England, particularly in the old centre of Durham. In Scotland, the term originated in royal burghs created in the twelfth century, the word deriving from the Old French word venelle meaning "alley" or "lane". Unlike a tenement entry to private property, known as a "close", a vennel was a public way leading from a typical high street to the open ground beyond the burgage plots. The Latin form is venella.
caption: Tolbooth Wynd, Edinburgh, Scotland
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