Jordan Burn

The Jordan Burn, is the name of a stream, now culverted for much of its course, that runs through the Victorian suburb of Morningside in Edinburgh, Scotland, and was until 1856 the southern boundary of the city and county.

The Jordan rises on Craighouse Hill, then runs eastwards under Myreside Road and along the southern edge of the Royal Edinburgh Hospital grounds, where it is fed by the Comiston Burn from South Morningside, to the end of Maxwell Street.

At Duddingston Mills the name changes again, this time to the Figgate Burn which enters the Firth of Forth at Portobello, having travelled a total distance of approximately ten miles.

These appear to have proliferated in the Victorian period, being very likely added by Bible-conscious residents of the expanding suburb of Morningside who wished to perpetuate the tradition; so much so that it contributed to the district's reputation of being the city's "Bible Belt".

[6] As late as the mid-1960s, the author of a survey of Edinburgh wrote of the community in Morningside that, ...respect is due to this disciplined if stolid army of South Edinburgh, repairing each week in satins and 'stands' of Sabbath broadcloth to its respective persuasions at 'Holy Corner', (Churchhill) and similar ecclesiastical meccas, and in the pleasant Sunday afternoons making pilgrimages to the large, airy, orderly and flowery cemeteries of Grange, Morningside and Newington.