Liberton is perhaps one of the most elusive villages on the south side of Edinburgh in that it is possible, even today, to identify four separate communities with Liberton.

The most important, by position and reputation, is Kirk Liberton, which grew up around the old church at the head of Kirk Brae. Half a mile to the west, Over Liberton or Upper Liberton came to prominence through the Littles of Liberton who resided, firstly, in the defensive Liberton Tower, and later in the much more elegant Liberton House. Two other communities to the north complete the group: Liberton Dams nestles at the foot of Liberton Brae, and Nether Liberton is clustered around the junction of Gilmerton Road and Craigmillar Park. All four, although distinct in themselves, came within the parish of Liberton and have in many ways developed along similar lines. The way that development has taken place is what makes Liberton historically interesting. The origin of the name "Liberton" is beset with problems. The usual explanation is that it is a corruption of Leperton or Lepertown, from a hospital for lepers which is said to have stood in the district. There are two objections to this, however. The first is that no trace has ever been found of a hospital in the district which admitted people suffering from leprosy. The second is even more convincing: the name Liberton or Libberton, as a surname, existed in the district for more than a hundred years before known outbreaks of the disease in Edinburgh. Stuart Harris, the eminent authority on place names in Edinburgh, goes even further. In The Place Names of Edinburgh Mr Harris states that the leper town explanation is not only fanciful but impossible, since the place name is much older than any use of the word "leper" or "lipper" in Scots’. According to Mr Harris, the name has an Anglian source in the old words for ‘barley farm on the slope’.

In this small area all the main elements of village life were located. The old approach to the village was by Kirk Brae to the crossroads at the junction of Lasswade Road, Mount Vernon Road and Kirkgate. The school was in the building now owned by Liberton Inn; the church and manse occupied a large area of ground to the north-west; and the village smiddy was on the north-east corner of Kirk Brae and Mount Vernon Road. Altogether it was a very compact community with most of the outlying district under cultivation. Liberton Church, designed by the eminent architect, James Gillespie Graham, has been described, in Groome’s Ordnance Gazetteer of Scotland, as a handsome semi-Gothic edifice. The very distinctive west tower, with its corbelled parapet and four slender pinnacles, is a prominent landmark seen from several viewpoints. The main body of the church is rectangular but its symmetrical walls are interrupted by graceful windows and several doorways. The foundation stone was laid on 27th January 1815 in the presence of the minister, the Rev. James Grant, the heritors and many of the parishioners.

The old hamlet of Over Liberton, as distinct from the barony, was never more than a handful of houses and farm steadings, huddled around two principal buildings: to the west stood the ancient, high-walled fortress of Liberton Tower; and to the east, at the end of a long tree-lined avenue, lay Liberton House.