The site of the church is associated with the early Christian figure St Triduana, a pious woman who is said to have come to Scotland from Constantinople with St Rule bringing with them the bones of St Andrew. She is said to have settled in Rescobie, where her beauty attracted the unwanted attention of Nechtan, King of the Picts. Legend asserts that she tore out her own eyes and presented them to the king, who then left her alone. Her sight was then miraculously restored and she moved to Restalrig, near Edinburgh, where she established a church next to a spring that would gain a reputation for healing eye disorders.

The simple box church that occupies the site today was built in 1820, possibly to a Thomas Telford design, incorporating from an earlier church a bell of 1620 and an elaborate 17th-century mural monument into its south wall. It was substantially renovated in 1908 by the architectural partnership of John Carver & Archibald Symon. A small vestibule was added at the west end and panelled in oak, the windows on the south side were removed, the ceiling of the sanctuary was panelled in pitch pine, new flooring and heating installed throughout and a new window inserted on the west end to where the pulpit was also relocated. A fine single-manual pipe organ, made by John Robertson Miller of Dundee with Austrian oak case, was gifted to the newly refurbished church.

The church was closed and marketed for sale in 2026 by the Church of Scotland during a period of nationwide rationalisation of its property portfolio by the denomination. The graveyard remains open to visitors and in the care of the local authority.