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".

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.

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).

[7] 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..."[8] It is unclear whether the convent at Sciennes suffered.

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..."[9] 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?]

[10] 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.

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.

[16] The burgh muir was the traditional Edinburgh location for military training and wappenshaws (district inspections of arms) held periodically in accordance with a 1548 act of Parliament[which?]

The story attached to its origin was established by Sir Walter Scott in his epic poem 'Marmion' (1808) which contains the lines, "The royal banner, floating wide:/The Staff, a pine tree strong and straight:/Pitched deeply in a massive stone/Which still in memory is shown."

These primitive ambulances were preceded by "Bailies of the Mure", voluntarily recruited men wearing black or grey tunics and St Andrew's Crosses.

On its south bank were prepared large cauldrons of boiling water in which other Bailies of the Mure, known as "clengeris" [cleansers], carrying long staffs with metal hooks at the tips, attempted to disinfect the victims' clothes.

[29] When land in the west muir area was feued in 1597, the council reserved a path at the east end leading to the Braid Burn for use during times of pestilence.

An area of ground known as "the Gallowgreen" (when its feuing was recorded in 1668)[32] was the site of a gibbet of uncertain date, erected on the eastern edge of the burgh muir.

In the following year the Town Council ordered the gibbet, described as "foullet and decayand, bayth in the timmer [timber] wark and the wallis", to be replaced close to the same spot (at the present-day junction of East Preston Street and Dalkeith Road) and enclosed by walls of sufficient height "sua tht doggis sal not be abill to cary the cariounis [dead flesh] furth of the samyn"; a statement that implies the practice of hanging the bodies or body parts of malefactors in chains.

The new gibbet is described in the Town Council Minutes of 1568 as consisting of two or more stone pillars connected at the top by one or more wooden cross-beams, with the whole structure surrounded by a wall to keep out stray dogs.

[33] Other executions here included the hanging of members of the outlawed McGregor clan, of whom a total of 38 were judicially killed on the spot between 1603 and 1624, as were four 'Gypsies' in 1611, for failing to observe a parliamentary act of 1609 which had banished all "Egyptianis" from the kingdom.

For example, the torso of James Graham, 1st Marquis of Montrose, without his heart (removed from his coffin at the instigation of his niece), was unceremoniously buried in unconsecrated ground after his execution on 21 May 1650.

The diarist John Nicoll recorded the event, [A guard of honour of four captains with their companies] went out thaireftir to the Burrow mure quhair his corps wer bureyit, and quhair sundry nobles and gentrie his friendis and favorites, both hors and fute wer thair attending; and thair, in presence of sundry nobles, earls, lordis, barones and otheris convenit for the tyme, his graif [grave] was raisit, his body and bones taken out and wrappit up in curious clothes and put in a coffin, quhilk, under a canopy of rich velwet, wer careyit from the Burrow-mure to the Toun of Edinburgh; the nobles barones and gentrie on hors, the Toun of Edinburgh and many thousandis besyde, convoyit these corpis all along, the callouris [colours] fleying, drums towking [beating], trumpettis sounding, muskets cracking and cannones from the Castell roring; all of thame walking on till thai come to the Tolbuith of Edinburgh, frae the quhilke his heid wes very honorablie and with all dew respectis taken doun and put within the coffin under the cannopie with great acclamation and joy; all this tyme the trumpettis, the drumes, cannouns, gunes, the displayit cullouris geving honor to these deid corps.

From thence all of thame, both hors and fute, convoyit these deid corps to the Abay Kirk of Halyrudhous quhair he is left inclosit in ane yll [aisle] till forder ordour be by his Majestie and Estaites of Parliament for the solempnitie of his Buriall.

[36] The older form of the Burgh Muir name is retained by a street between Church Hill and Holy Corner in Morningside, which recalls the vanished hamlet of Burghmuirhead.

Boroughmuirhead post office moved in 2010 from the site it occupied for over a century to nearby Bruntsfield Place, thus losing its association with the historic area.