The church is built in the form of a cross, and part of the roof is still covered with the old grey flagstones. A small square belfry tower at the west end is surmounted by a short octagonal spire, with richly ornamented string mouldings. In the pre-Reformation days, the provostry of Corstorphine was a lucrative and much sought after office. In the beginning of the sixteenth century it was held by the Robert Cairncross who bears an unenviable reputation in Buchanan's history, by the manner in which he obtained the Abbey of Holyrood, without subjecting himself to the law against simony. Having ascertained that the abbot was at the point of death, he wagered a considerable sum with the king that he would _not_ be offered the first vacant benefice, and lost his bet by being appointed Abbot of Holyrood. Putting on one side such wild legends as derive the name of Corstorphine from _Croix d'or fin_, the golden cross presented to the church by some mythical French noble, it seems far more probable that the village was called after the "Cross of Torphin;" though of that there are now no traces left. Probably it was erected by the same Torphin who gave his name to one of the outlying spurs of Pentland, which is still called Torphin Hill, and stands in Colinton parish. Tradition says he was an archdeacon of Lothian, but his name carries one back to the early Saxon invaders of the land. In old days a loch stretched over what now is fertile plain; and the Water of Leith, which ran out of it, was deep enough for the Lords Forrester to bring their provisions up from Edinburgh by boat to their castle of Corstorphine, which stood close to the north-west corner of the loch.