History of Edinburgh the meantime the Old Town continued to decay into an increasingly dilapidated, overcrowded slum with high mortality rates, and was practically segregated socially from the rest of the city. This was especially true where the sub-division of tenements offered the cheapest lodgings in narrow alleyways that formed the backdrop to the infamous 'West Port Murders' of Burke and Hare. In 1865 Alexander Smith wrote of one of the poorest districts, The Cowgate is the Irish portion of the city. Edinburgh leaps over it with bridges: the inhabitants are morally and geographically the lower orders. They keep to their own quarters,
West End, Edinburgh West End, Edinburgh The West End () of Edinburgh, Scotland, forms a large part of the city centre. The West End boasts many of the city's arts venues, such as the Usher Hall, the Filmhouse, the Royal Lyceum and the Traverse Theatre. The Village hosts art festivals and crafts fairs. The northern half of the West End lies in Edinburgh's World Heritage Site, of which it makes up a fair proportion. As can be inferred by its inclusion in this, this area of the city contains many buildings of great architectural beauty, primarily long rows and crescents of Georgian terraced