Harlaw
Harlaw # WMS S NT336982 2 40m
le Harlawe c.1290 Fraser, Wemyss ii no. 2 [see WMS Introduction for the full text of this charter]
Hairlaw 1531 RMS iii no. 980 [... Wyndyege, Hairlaw ...]
le Hairlaw 1533 RMS iii no. 1303 [to James Colville of East Wemyss (Est-Wemys) and Alison Bruce ‘le Manys de Est-Wemys cum turre, fortalicio, le outsettis cum pendiculis viz le Hairlaw et Wyndiage’]
Hairlaw-Eist-Wemys 1549 RMS iv no. 302 [to John Gibson lands including those of Hairlaw-Eist-Wemys in the barony of Eist-Wemys]
Harlawe 1550 Midl. Chrs. (Holy Trinity) no. 48
Hareslaw 1775 Ainslie/Fife [to the south-west of Wellsgreen]
Hareslaw 1827 Ainslie/East Fife
Harlaw 1880 Sasines no. 5524 [‘lands of Kirktown, Windyedge and Harlaw’]
Sc hare + Sc law
‘Boundary law or hill’. Its first occurrence c.1290 is as a boundary feature, a hill on the marches between WMS and MAI (see WMS Introduction for the full text). The farm of Hareslaw on Ainslie/Fife took its name from the hill, and it is the farm which has supplied the above NGR, though it is actually 600 m south of the parish boundary, which coincides more or less with the high-point of the law or hill (at around 65 m). Presumably the farm included the law or hill on its north side which does actually form the boundary with Cameron MAI. The farm, and some of the law, has been mined or quarried away.
This place-name appeared in printed volume 1