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 Port, Edinburgh Port is a reminder of the area's older name. Dominating the north side of the West Port at its junction with Lady Lawson Street is Argyle House, built in 1968 to designs by Michael Laird and Partners. Long used as local and national government offices, it now houses CodeBase, the largest tech incubator in Scotland, University of Edinburgh offices, along with various other businesses. Cited as one of Edinburgh's 'ugliest buildings', it provides its north-facing occupants with an impressive prospect of Edinburgh Castle Rock, while blotting out the same for anyone at street level. Evolution House, the newest building of