Geograph - photograph every grid square

Cock Burn is a small stoney burn that not too long from here flows into the Water of Leith. Cockburn is a relatively common surname in Scotland, and presumably always derives from some kind of chicken enterprise . However, in this case it appears that the burn derives from the surname of people nearby (who presumably got their name from some kind of chicken enterprise previously). The OS naming book, compiled to justify all spellings and detail any other interesting facts when the first OS maps of an area (here in 1853) were compiled, makes for amusing reading. (Personally I think that the OS should legally be obliged to update these every 50 years or so as they make for fantastic reading).
In the OS naming book the two 'authorities' for the burn"s spelling both had the surname Cockburn. Judging by the OS guy's comments the nearby farm must have taken their surname too, as he pointedly mentions in his margin notes: "I could scarcely find any person in the vicinity that knew the stream to have a name". Anyway, they got their way, obviously to the annoyance of Mr Mapman, and it remains Cock Burn to this day!