Burgh Muir - Feuing The Land

Feuing The Land

A record survives from 1511 listing the first 16 feuars who were each given three acres of land on the north side of the burgh loch, divided into a half-acre lot for building and two and a half acres of farmland. This was followed by a further 27 lots granted in 1530, mainly for the South Muir, but including one to the widow of Walter Chapman situated just north of the convent at "Seynis" (Sciennes). Over time most of the South Muir plots came into the possession of the Dick family as owners of the Grange estate. The list of feuars in 1530 also survives, albeit with some gaps.

In 1586, the Council, led by Provost William Little, decided on a further round of feuing by auctioning lots on the Wester Muir and Easter Muir which extended down the southern slope of the muir as far as the Pow Burn (the Dicks of Grange became owners of the Braid estate beyond the burn in 1631). The Wester Muir comprised the lands which developed by a process of sub-leasing, known in Scots Law as subinfeudation, into the districts of Greenhill, Burghmuirhead and Morningside. The Easter Muir comprised the lands which developed likewise into the districts of the Grange, Blackford, Mayfield and Newington.

The feuing of the Grange Estate was sanctioned by a private Act of Parliament in 1825 which allowed its owner, Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, to feu land for the building of residential villas; the first being constructed in 1845.

The Marchmont district, lying directly south of the Meadows, developed on land first feued by the Warrenders of Bruntsfield in 1869.