"The Bonny, Bonny Broom", also known as "The Broom of the Cowdenknowes", "Cowden Knows", "Cowdenknowes", "The Lovely Northerne Lass", "O My King" and "O the broom" is a very old Northumbrian air that has been set to various words, but most famously appears as "The Broom of the Cowdenknows". Broom is a bush with brilliant yellow flowers that grows all over England and Southern Scotland on hillsides. Stems of the plant were at one time bundled together and bound to sticks for use as sweepers, hence the name 'broom' for the common implement. Cowdenknowes itself, with its famous broom, is situated on the east bank of the River Leader, five miles northeast of Melrose. The tune was popular, widely known in Britain, and frequently used as the vehicle for numerous lyrics; it appears, for example, set for four different songs in the Tea Table Miscellany (1724), though the earliest English appearance seems to have been in the first edition of Playford's English Dancing Master (1651). Playford also included it in his Musick's Delight on the Cithern (1666). Scots versions predate English ones with the melody used for broadside ballads at least as early as 1632. Later Scots versions of the song are to be found in Orpheus Caledonius (1725) and The Scots Musical Museum (1787). The song was mentioned in the text of the very first ballad opera, The Gentle Shepherd (1725), written by Allan Ramsay. The A part is from The Dancing Master. The B part is from Williamson's English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish Fiddle Tunes. It was recorded (with lyrics) on A Trip to Kilburn by The Baltimore Consort.