A sizeable and affluent area of SW Edinburgh, Bonaly spans the A720 Edinburgh Bypass between the Pentland Hills and Colinton. Outside the Bypass, Bonaly is rural, with the Bonaly Country Park extending to 290 ha / 717 acres and created in 1984, Bonaly Reservoir, constructed in 1853, the 19th C. Bonaly Tower built on the site of an original hamlet here for Lord Cockburn, and Bonaly Scout Camp, which was established in 1931. Bonaly Burn rises from the Torduff Reservoir and flows east northeast to Colinton Mains and Oxgangs, where is becomes the Braid Burn. Within the Bypass, the area is of suburban character, with neat houses and verdant gardens. Several large villas were built here in interwar years, but it was in the late 1950s that the fields around Bonaly Farm began to be lost to large-scale housing development. This continued until the 1990s. Bonaly Primary School was established in 1976 and moved to new premises in 2008. Pupils wear a distinctive brown and yellow uniform.
