Traprain Law, a conspicuous conical hill in Prestonkirk parish, Haddingtonshire, 4½ miles E by S of Haddington, and 1¾ mile SSW of East Linton. Rising 724 feet above sea-level, it forms a beautiful and farseen feature in the rich champaign landscape around it; and, from its summit, it brings under the eye of a spectator nearly the whole Firth of Forth, a wide expanse of the German Ocean, and part, it is said, of no fewer than thirteen counties. Its ancient name was Dunpender, from two Gaelic words which signify ` a steep hill; 'and this name is quite descriptive of its character. On the S side it rises almost sheer up from the plain in one grand perpendicular ascent; and on other sides, though admitting sheep, and affording them excellent pasturage, it is too steep to be a grazingground for black cattle. Its composition is a slaty clinkstone, so seamed as to be irregularly columnar, and occasionally merging from a clouded brown to a porphyritic appearance; and towards the summit the clinkstone passes into greenstone of a bluish-grey hue, and slightly granulated with hornblende.—Ord. Sur., sh. 33, 1863.

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