Thanks to the kind help of the Fountainbridge Library staff, for the information that
follows.
Fountainbridge's street name is recorded as early as 1713, and relates to the crossing of Lochrin Burn by the Lanark Road. The name originates from a suburb created by Sir Alexander Brand soon after his purchase of Dalry in 1696. The new feus were on the north side of Lanark Road, but the name (as reported in the Edinburgh Evening Courant 1774) derived from the Foullbridge Well of 'singularly sweet water', south of the road and east of the burn and bridge, which was itself some 20 yards east of the entry to the present Gilmore Park. Evidently 'Fountainbridge' was newly coined as a more attractive name for the suburb than the acient one still in use in 1705 and recored in Protocols of James Young 1512 as the 'lands of Foulbridggs' lying south of the road and east of a 9-acre property of Brigflat. Scots foul, pronounced 'fool' and simply meaning 'muddy', is frequent in names of Burns and fords; while briggs not only witness to a bridge in the Lanark road at this early date, but probably also to a Bridhouse and toll, as in the case of Briggs, Kirkliston, and Briggs O Braid.
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