West Linton is a town and civil parish in southern Scotland, on the A702. It was previously in the area of Peeblesshire, but given that local government re-organisation in the mid-1990s it is now part of Scottish Borders. Many of its homeowners are commuters, owing to the village's distance to Edinburgh, which is 16 miles (26 kilometres) to the north eastern. West Linton has a lengthy background, and also holds a yearly conventional celebration called the Whipman Play. The village of Linton is of ancient beginning. Its name stems from a Celtic aspect (cognate with the modern-day Irish Gaelic linn, Scottish Gaelic linne, and also modern Welsh "Llyn") implying a lake or pool, a pool in a river, or a channel (as in Loch Linnhe, part of which is called An Linne Dhubh, the black swimming pool, or Dublin, an Anglicisation of dubh and linn, indicating black pool) and the Gaelic "dun" Welsh "hullabaloo"), for a fortress, strengthened place, or army camp (pertaining to the modern English community, using the Saxon "tun", a farm or collection of residences), as well as is evidently proper, as the town appears to have actually been bordered by lakes, pools as well as marshes. At once it was called Lyntoun Roderyck, identified possibly with Roderyck or Riderch, King of Strathclyde, whose region included this area, or with a local chieftain of that name. The Scottish Gaelic variation of the name is a partial translation, Ruairidh being a Gaelic form of Roderick. The prefix "West" was gotten many centuries later on to make clear the difference from East Linton in East Lothian.