It lies alongside the main arterial Morningside Road, part of an ancient route from Edinburgh to the south west of Scotland.

[1] The district is bisected by the A702 road, which forms part of an ancient route from Edinburgh to Biggar and the south west of Scotland.

[2] The village of Morningside grew up on part of the Burgh Muir, this being common ground that was gifted to Edinburgh by David I in the first half of the 12th century.

In the late 16th century, the town council feued the western part of this land to pay for the huge cost of dealing with the plague that had swept the city in 1585.

[3] Writing in 1882, James Grant described the original village as a 'row of thatched cottages, a line of trees and a blacksmith's forge'.

[4] Morningside grew rapidly as an agricultural village, serving neighbouring farms and estates, including those of Canaan, Egypt, Plewlands and others.

It attracted many of Edinburgh's wealthier citizens who built villas and mansion houses on large plots obtained from the sub-division of the nearby estates.

According to some sources, it is derived from the village's location on the sunny south-facing or 'morning side' of the city,[7] but Stuart Harris says that it is more likely to be just a 'fancy' name, invented as a caprice by one of the estate owners.

The estate's name in turn derives from the Gaelic bràghaid, meaning a throat or gorge; this refers to the deep cut in the Braid Burn near the present Braidburn Valley Park.

[48] The district is mentioned in the song "Then I Met You", written and performed by Scottish duo The Proclaimers, from their 1988 album Sunshine on Leith.

[50][51] The accent was famously used by Maggie Smith in her portrayal of the title character in the 1969 film version of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.