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 houses. Haymarket station is in the West End. The island tram stop at Coates Crescent was originally called 'Shandwick Place' until it was renamed West End - Princes Street at the request of local traders. As this stop sits on a switching point, it can act as an eastern terminus when Princes Street is closed to traffic. <br> The Shandwick Place and Lothian Road corridors are well-served locally by Lothian Buses and other operators outwith Edinburgh. West End, Edinburgh The West End () of Edinburgh, Scotland, forms a large part of the city centre. The West End boasts many of