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.

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.

"[5] 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 [a by-product of cheese-making from 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 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".

A request made to the council by Walter Scott in 1798 (before his fame as a novelist), that the volunteer cavalry regiment of which he was quartermaster should be allowed to train on the Links, based on the traditional right to muster troops there, was rejected.

A footpath and cycle lane connecting Bruntsfield to Middle Meadow Walk provide all those living in the area with a shortcut and quick route to the university buildings around George Square.