Burdiehouse, a hamlet and a burn of Edinburghshire. The hamlet, in the SE of Liberton parish, lies on the burn 4½ miles S by E of Edinburgh, and 1½ NW of Loanhead; is supposed to have been originally called Bourdeaux-House, from its being the residence of some of Queen Mary's French attendants in 1561; and is celebrated for its limekilns, which manufacture about 15,000 bolls of lime a year. A vast deposit of limestone here contains fossils which have been largely discussed by eminent geologists. - The burn, rising on the northern shoulder of the Pentland Hills, within Colinton parish, runs 3½ miles eastward to Burdiehouse hamlet, and thence 5 miles north-eastward through Liberton parish, and on the boundary with Newton and Inveresk parishes, to the Firth of Forth between Joppa and Fisherrow.

(F.H. Groome, Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland (1882-4); © 2004 Gazetteer for Scotland)