"the hill-pasture for horses".

The area was developed as a planned middle-class suburb by Sir George Warrender (the son-in-law of Hugh Hume Campbell), who owned Bruntsfield House and the surrounding estate (which was also known as the Warrender Park) in the middle of the 19th century. This was at a time of rapid population growth in Edinburgh, stimulating a significant increase in the demand for housing. The original feuing plan laid out by architect David Bryce in 1869 called for mainly terraced villas,