Bruntsfield Links

Bruntsfield Links is of open parkland in Bruntsfield, Edinburgh, immediately to the south-west of the adjoining Meadows.

Unlike The Meadows, which formerly contained a loch drained by the end of the 18th century, Bruntsfield Links has always been dry ground. It is the last vestige of the Burgh Muir, former woodland which stretched southwards to the Jordan Burn at the foot of the slope now covered by the built-up areas of the Grange and Morningside. The woodland was cleared in accordance with a decree of James IV in 1508, much of the wood being used to build timber-fronted houses and forestairs in the Lawnmarket and West Bow area of the Old Town.

Golf on the Links

" Links" is a Scots word for land associated with the game of golf. Originally meaning open sandy ground "usually covered with turf, bent grass or gorse, normally near the sea-shore", as at Leith Links or Lundin Links, the word came to mean any ground on which golf was played and is now often used for modern golf courses.

A City of Edinburgh Council plaque states that Bruntsfield Links are one of the earliest known locations where the game was played in Scotland, but it is unclear precisely when. The Golf Tavern which stands on the west side of the Links claims to have been established in 1456, although there is no evidence for this other than an unsupported statement made in ''A history of the Edinburgh Burgess Golfing Society'', now known as The Royal Burgess Golfing Society.

After James IV's Charter of 1508 allowed the Town Council to feu portions of the Burgh Muir quarriers began extracting sandstone from the Links. By an Act of Council dated 25 December 1695 lessees were granted the liberty of choosing "an aiker" on any part of the Links for a quarry, "the said aiker always being at ane distance from the place where the neighbours play at Goulf". Robert Chambers mentions golf being played on the Links at the time of a well-known local incident which he implies took place in the reign of Charles II, although the internal evidence points more to the later " Killing Time" of the 1680s. This would make it contemporaneous with the famous game of golf played by the Duke of York and John Patersone on Leith Links in 1682 (see Timeline of golf).

By the middle of the 18th century the area to the west of Bruntsfield House was regarded as the "city quarry", from which, for example, stones were taken in 1740 to build the city's Charity Workhouse at Bristo. A history of the area relates how, "The vacant intervals etween the quarry holesthen became utilised by the citizens in pursuit of the popular game of golf, the quarries with their mounds of debris acting in place of the usual bunkers." When the Warrender family of Bruntsfield applied to acquire ground between the nearby quarry and their property the Council approved, deciding that "the giving of the feu of the same could in no degree be hurtful to the Exercise and Diversion of the Golff". In 1752, however, an anonymous pamphlet warned against further encroachments, arguing that "the greatest Part of the Sheep Pasture will be cut off, and the Inhabitants deprived of Ew Whey ewe's milk">Sheep_milk.html" ;"title=" by-product of cheese-making from Sheep milk">ewe's milk which is often prescribed and contributes much to their Health, and is easily got, because of the Nearness of the Town; and Tender People will be deprived of these Walks and retired Places which the playing at Golf hath rendered absolutely necessary, and the only places to retire to when the Golfing Green is full of Golfers."
The pursuit of golf was a major factor in preserving the Links as an open space. In 1791, it was proposed to drive a straight road across them (to link present-day Home Street to the crest of the hill at present-day Church Hill), thus bypassing the little village of Wrightshouses (roughly on the site of present-day Leven Street). The proposers argued that the existing road constituted "the worst and most inconvenient of all the entries into Edinburgh...which must always be the case while it is carried through so narrow and a dirty a village inhabited by so many low people". The proposal was, however, successfully blocked by the Burgess Golfing Society which used the Links and the road re-routed to circumvent them. This resulted in the demolition of houses on the west side of the village, but spared those on the east side, where a terrace retains the name in the form "Wright's Houses". A request made to the council by Walter Scott