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Learning in Literature

wynd n. a narrow, often winding street or lane leading off a main thoroughfare

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“wynd n. a narrow, often winding street or lane leading off a main thoroughfare”

13th August 2007

Wynd is often found in street-names such as Old Tolbooth Wynd in Edinburgh, Dyers Wynd in Paisley and Kirkland Wynd in Dumfries. The very oldest evidence that exists for the word wynd comes from the names of various streets recorded in Latin Charter records from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. By the fifteenth century, far more documents were being written in Scots, and examples are more readily available. The Charters of Edinburgh (1439) discuss "The comon venale callit Sanct Leonardis wynde" and the Burgh Records of Dunfermline (1488) give an account of payments of "annuel rent to Johne of Wallod of the Wynd".

Wynds are often mentioned in Burgh Records, and those for Edinburgh in 1701 report that "The Magistrats are ordained to lay doun effectuall methods for preserving the town and suburbs thereof from the nastiness of the streets wynds and closses". The old "gardy-loo" tradition of cowping all manner of refuse into the road created hazardous living conditions. As cities evolved, many of these old winding passages were lost, including the "wynds and closes on either side of the Trongate", discussed by Jack House in The Heart of Glasgow (1965).

Wynds are not restricted to cities, as Lewis Grassic Gibbon's Cloud Howe (1933) reminds us with the description of "the spinners' wynds" in Segget. Although perhaps best known from street-names, wynds also appear in works such as Christopher Rush's A Twelvemonth and a Day (1985): "I tried to turn up the narrow wynd but the wind shot down there like an invisible battering ram and thudded me against the harbour wall, panting for breath". Wynds are often found in coastal towns, as the following quotation from the Dictionary of the Scots Language suggests: "Ye get wynies maistly in e fisher toons". The form "wynie" seem quite rare, so please tell us if you use it.