The Burgh Muir is the historic term for an extensive area of land lying to the south of Edinburgh city centre, upon which much of the southern part of the city now stands following its gradual spread and more especially its rapid expansion in the late 18th and 19th centuries. The name has been retained today in the partly anglicised form Boroughmuir for a much smaller district within Bruntsfield, vaguely defined by the presence of Boroughmuir High School, and, until 2010, Boroughmuirhead post office in its north-west corner.
In terms of today's street names, the historic muir (Scots for 'moor') extended from Leven Street, Bruntsfield Place and Morningside Road in the west to Dalkeith Road in the east, and as far south as the Jordan Burn and east to Peffermill, thus covering an area of approximately five square miles. The names of the historic roads that bounded it were the "Easter Hiegait", corresponding to Dalkeith Road, and the "Wester Hiegait" corresponding to Bruntsfield Place and Morningside Road.W Moir Bryce, The Book Of The Old Edinburgh Club, vol. X, Edinburgh 1918, contains a court statement made by the Edinburgh magistrates in 1593 which defines its limits in detail: "Begynnand at the west neuke [corner] of the dyke [wall] upoun the south syde of Sanct leonards loneing [lane] qr [where] the grund of the croce stands, and thairfra passand south and south eist as the said dyke gangis be the heids of the airabill landis of Sanctleonards and Preistisfield respectively until it cum to the end of the dyke foresaid, and to the gait that passes to the Priestisfield, Peppermylne, and Nidrie, and fra the south wast syde of the said gait, as ane oyr dyke passes south and south wast, be the sydes of the airable lands of Camroun qll it cum to the south wast neuk of the said dyke, and thairfra doun as the said dyke passes south south eist to the end of the Grene end of the said Commoun Mure by and contigue to the passage and hie street [Dalkeith Road] fra the said burgh of Edr. to the brig end betuix the lone dyke of the said lands of Camroun, and thairfra ascendand the waster lone dyke be the edge of the said commoun mure, and as the said wester lone dyke gannis to the end thairof, quhair it meets at the croce dyke by and upoun the eist syde of the aikers of the said commoun mure pertening to [blank text] and sa linalie be the said dyke qll it cum to the Powburne, and sua up the said Pow burne qll it cum to the loneing that passes to the lands of Newlands pertening to the laird of Braid [bordering the south of the Grange], and thairfra wastwart as the dyke gangis to the south neuk of the dyke situat upone the eister pt of the lands of Tipperlinn, and sua northwart as the said dyke gangis by the yet [gate] of Tipperlinn, and thairfra northwart to the dykes of the corne land heids thairof, passand north as the said dyke gangis to the hie gait that passes by Merchamstoun to the Craighous, and eist be the said gait till it cum to the west dyke of the croft callit the Dow croft [present Albert Terrace], and thairfra sout. to the sout. end of the said dyke and sua nort. eist be the said dyke to the nort. eist neuk thairof, and thairfra nort. wert as the dyke gangis to the nort. west nuk of the same upoun the south syde of the passage that leids fra Edr. by the yett of Merchamstoun, and than begynnand upoun the nort. syde of the said hie passage directlie foiranent [in front of] the nuk of the said dyke be the new yaird dyk laitlie biggit [built] be the laird of Merchamstoun upoun ane pece of the said commoun mure laitlie disponit [transferred in ownership] be the provost baillies and counsall of the said burt. [baronet] for the tyme to him, and sua haldand be the said new dyke and gangand about the samen till it cum to the nort. eist nuk tairof, and thairfra nort. wart and nort. eist be the auld dykes at the heid of the airable lands of Merchimstoun till it cum to the wester gawill [side] of the Coithouses [stone cottages] pertenand to the Laird of Wrytishouses [present Leven Street]."
The last surviving open space of the former burgh muir is Bruntsfield Links, a public park adjoining the Meadows to the north.
General history
The burgh muir was part of the ancient Forest of Drumselch, used for hunting and described in a 16th-century chronicle as originally an abode of "hartis, hindis, toddis [foxes] and siclike maner of beastis".W Moir Bryce, The Book Of The Old Edinburgh Club, vol.x, Edinburgh 1918, p.2 quoting Bellenden's Croniklis of Scotland It was given to the city as common land by David I in the 12th century and feughed by a decree of James IV in 1508.W Moir Bryce, The Book Of The Old Edinburgh Club, vol.x, Edinburgh 1918, pp.1-2 The open space was used for grazing cattle which would be driven there through the Cowgate (literally, "cow road") from byres within the town walls where the cows were milked.
No record of David I's gift of the burgh muir has survived, many of the burgh records having been lost during the Wars of Independence and when the Earl of Hertford sacked the city in 1544. It is possible that it was given at the same time as the founding of Holyrood Abbey in the 12th century, the abbey charter (c.1143) containing the first mention of Edinburgh as a royal burgh.D Daiches, Edinburgh, London 1978, p.15W Moir Bryce, The Book Of The Old Edinburgh Club, vol.x, Edinburgh 1918, "de meo Burgo de Edwinesburg"
Three areas of the muir were exempted from the city's jurisdiction, due to having been previously granted under separate royal charters: the Grange (church-held farmland) of St. Giles ("Sanct Gilysis Grange"), and the Provostry lands of Whitehouse and Sergeantry lands of Bruntsfield, both held from the Crown by royal officials.
The Grange lands were forfeited in the reign of David II and awarded to Sir Walter de Wardlaw, Bishop of Glasgow, passing to his kin, the Wardlaws, until 1506, and then to the merchant, John Cant, whose family owned them until 1632. Cant donated 18 acres of his land to help establish the Dominican nunnery of St. Catherine of Siena in 1517, intended to provide for widows of some of the nobility slain at Flodden in 1513. This was the last convent established in pre-Reformation Scotland, from which the surrounding area of Sciennes took its name. A small Chapel of St. John the Baptist built c.1512-13 by Sir John Craufurd, a prebendary of the Grange of St. Giles, as a hermitage for vagabonds, was given to the Sisters by him for use as their conventual chapel. It is believed to have stood on the site later occupied by Sciennes Hill House.W Moir Bryce, The Book Of The Old Edinburgh Club, vol.x, Edinburgh 1918, pp.96-102 In 1632, the lands held by the Cants passed to another merchant family, the Dicks (later Dick Lauder), who inhabited Grange House until the 19th century. Increasingly empty and neglected after 1848, the house was demolished in 1936.W Moir Bryce, The Book Of The Old Edinburgh Club, vol.x, Edinburgh 1918
The Bruntsfield lands, held originally by the King's Sergeant, Richard Broune (hence Brounisfield, later Bruntsfield), were granted by Robert II to Alan de Lawdre in 1381. The Lauder family sold them to the merchant John Fairlie in 1603, whose family sold them in turn to Sir George Warrender, a Bailie and later Lord Provost of Edinburgh, in 1695. His descendants signed the estate over to Edinburgh Corporation (Council) in the 1930s. The second Bruntsfield House on the site, dating from the time of the Lauders in the 16th century, still stands.
The Whitehouse lands have had a more complex history. Records show that prior to 1449 they were held by a family of the surname Hog before coming into the hands of Lord Chancellor William Crichton in the reign of James II (c.1449). They passed through numerous hands down the centuries, including Francis Stewart, 5th Earl of Bothwell (1581) and Walter Scott of Buccleuch (1594), until they were increasingly subfeued in the 19th century, the feudal superiors being, from 1890 onwards, two brothers named Reid. One feuar was the Order of Ursulines which established St. Margaret's Convent (now the Gillis Centre) in 1834, the first Catholic institution established in Scotland since the Reformation.
When the Earl of Hertford attacked Edinburgh in 1544 as part of what was later called the 'Rough Wooing' the original Bruntsfield House was burned to the ground, and it is generally assumed that a similar fate befell the Grange and Whitehouse, as one of Hertford's men wrote, "And the nexte mornyge, very erly we began where we lefte, and continued burnyge all that daye and the two dayes nexte ensuing contynually so that neyther within the wawles nor in the suburbes was lefte any one house unbrent..."British Library Cotton Ms. Augustus I ii 56 It is unclear whether the convent at Sciennes suffered.
James IV's charter of 1508
The land outwith the exempted portions began to be feued in the early 16th century. The Burgh Records record that in 1490 "...all the haill counsale, deikynis [leaders of craft trades], and community consentit to the assedatioun [feuing] of the space of the burrowmuir", but it was not until 1508 that a Royal Charter issued by James IV gave the Council licence to feu, stipulating that "the foresaid lands shall be leased in feu-farm as aforesaid, and their heirs and all dwellers on the same lands be subject to the jurisdiction of our foresaid Burgh, the Provost, Baillies and Officers thereof, present and to come, and that they repair every week with their victuals and other goods to the market of our said Burgh..."W Moir Bryce, The Book Of The Old Edinburgh Club, vol.x, Edinburgh 1918, p.67 A Council enactment of 30 April 1510 obliged the feuars "to build upon the said acres dwelling-houses, malt-barns, and cowbills, and to have servants for the making of malt betwixt [that date?] and Michaelmas 1512; and failing their doing so, to pay £40 to the common works of the town, and also to pay £5 for every acre of three acres of the Common Muir set to them".W Moir Bryce, The Book Of The Old Edinburgh Club, vol.x, Edinburgh 1918, p.67 This extract from the printed Burgh Records, vol.i, p.129 is rendered in modern English, but the original document cannot have used the £-sign for sterling; and is therefore more likely to refer to pounds Scots. The Scottish lawyer and antiquarian William Moir Bryce (whose exhaustive researches inform much of this article), writing in an age influenced by the Temperance Movement, thought this a "strange obligation", but it made sense at a time before piped urban water supplies, when beer was the common drink in preference to water drawn from lochs and wells which often proved injurious to health.
Clearing the land
The feuing of the Muir led to the rapid clearing of the remaining woodland on the muir, to dispose of which more easily the council granted anyone fronting their tenement with wood the liberty of extending the front by seven feet into the street. The resulting timber frontages were followed by wooden fore-stairs which reduced the width of the street even more (until banned by the council in 1674. A later act of the councilAct of the Town-Council of Edinburgh, discharging incroachments on the avenues of the said city and suburbs. 3 May 1727 in 1727 forbade stone-built stairs). According to the 18th-century historian William Maitland, "...the buildings which before had stonern fronts were now converted into wood, and the Burgh into a wooden city".W. Maitland, History of Edinburgh, Hamilton, Balfour & Neil, Edinburgh 1753, p.11 An English visitor William Brereton, commented in 1635 on what he perceived as the hideous effect of these wooden frontages,