Aha. Itâs a Scottish usage I should have been aware of. Means a common narrow alleyway in this sense, onto which more than one named building might back. Itâs got a building-y sense, but itâs not actually a building.
Definition
Likely the first of these two senses of the word âcloseâ (wiktionary).
- (Scotland) A very narrow alley between two buildings, often overhung by one of the buildings above the ground floor.
- (Scotland) The common staircase in a tenement.
Wikipedia adds:
Scottish tenements are constructed in terraces, and each entrance within a block is referred to as a close or stairâboth referring to the shared passageway to the individual flats.
OK, so looking at Edinburgh, closes often have more than one entrance, sometimes on different streets (see Carrubberâs Close, also on High Street but also on Jeffrey Street. And closes are numbered, in and of themselves, on the relevant street. Mappers in Edinburgh seem to dispense with the closeâs own address in delivery point on the close: see 4 Carrubberâs Close, which is down as
node 2977624484's tags
addr:city=Edinburgh
addr:country=GB
addr:housenumber=4
addr:street=Carrubber's Close
Always defer to the local mappers Theyâre not even using addr:parentstreet
, since thereâs two for this one and it probably doesnât matter.
But what if it does matter, or you want to capture how people are giving their addresses out?
If I wanted to be really extra about it, Iâd tag two things: one node for the final delivery point, normally the propertyâs entrance for these things:
name=Offbeat
addr:housenumber=1/8 # that's unusual in itself (see downthread)
addr:street=Bailie Fyfe's Close # on this. OSM has an apostrophe for it :)
addr:parentstreet=High Street # accessed via this.
addr:suburb=Royal Mile # maybe
addr:city=Edinburgh
addr:postcode=EH1 1SW
And one element for the close itself, somehow, since someone might be asking âoh, and how do I find Bailie Fyfeâs Close then?â. Iâd tag the entrance node or gate or whatever like
name=Bailie Fyfe's Close
addr:housenumber=107
addr:street=High Street
addr:suburb=Royal Mile
addr:city=Edinburgh
addr:postcode=EH1 1SW
Noting that Jamesâ Court up on Lawnmarket has 3 separately signed âWest Entryâ, âMid Entryâ, and âEast Entryâ entrances. They seem to each have a number (493-495 Lawnmarket, apparently).
Seems flexible to me, and in keeping with what Edinburgh mappers are doing right now. I bet in practice you donât often have to know the number of the close on its street to find your final address.