[7] As can be inferred therefore, this area of the city contains many buildings of great architectural beauty, primarily long rows and crescents of Georgian terraced houses.

[26] Gillespie Graham was also tasked with designing Queensferry Street, part of the Erskine Estate, which acts as the junction between the New Town and the new West End development.

The intention was to knock some of the houses down in order to extend the garden and roads to create a grand entrance from the Moray Estate into the West End development.

[28] From here the road also splinters onto the Dean Bridge constructed much later by Thomas Telford, and capped on the south side by what is now Deanbrae House (formerly an inn), and to the north by the Holy Trinity Church built in the late 1830s.

[14] One of the few exceptions was in 1850, when Sheriff of the Lothians and Peebles George Napier bought some of the land on the west of the estate for construction of a new "Coates Hall", designed by David Bryce as a small Baronial house.

[35] Other than this, William Walker left the land north and south of his Easter Coates House home as garden ground and it remained such until the 1870s.

[16] After his death the Easter Coates House estate would be inherited by Sir Patrick's two spinster daughters: Mary and Barbara Walker.

[43] In 1881 a grand 56 metre campanile was added to St George's West Church at Shandwick Place, described as "one of the icons of Scottish presbyterianism".

The original church had been designed by David Bryce, however the stunning campanile was the work of Sir Robert Rowand Anderson, one of Scotland's most renowned architects of the era.

Lord Provost of Edinburgh John Learmonth built the Dean Bridge around 1838 with engineer Thomas Telford to open up his lands in the north of the West End.

A number of nearby residents began a public subscription to purchase the slope, to improve the land and prevent the construction of Cambridge Terrace.

Following the bankruptcy of the Learmonth family, the land was purchased by Sir James Steel, a Lord Provost of Edinburgh who made his fortune in the building trade.

[54] While the power station has since been dismantled, the area still serves as one of the main electricity substations in Edinburgh and the site is covered with a false frontage.

By the late 19th century however Shandwick Place was redeveloped by a number of private developments, around the same time as the construction of the railway and Caledonia Hotel, which has left the small street with a distinct architectural feel compared to the surrounding Georgian era buildings.

[58] Following this re-development, Shandwick Place was famed for its art galleries, and connection to the turn of the century Scottish Colourists who worked in the area.

[65][66] From 1999 until 2020, the address at 1 Melville Crescent served as the Edinburgh home of the Secretary of State for Scotland, until the office was moved to the Queen Elizabeth House building in the Old Town.

Suggestions included removing parking, resurfacing the setts, or the addition of green space and public art, and the possibility of a cycle route.

[70][71] In the South West End, a complex of buildings was opened in the mid-1980s on the site that formerly housed the Princes Street Station goods shed.

Called The Exchange, it was designed by Sir Terry Farrell and includes the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, a Sheraton Grand hotel, a cutting edge Spa facility, bars and restaurants, and a number of offices for financial firms, lawyers, and banks.

[72][73] By 1984, the space opposite the Usher Hall in the West End (formerly the site of the goods shed for the Princes Street Railway Station) would be laid out as a new piazza-style square.

In recent years this has led to the assessment that these buildings - predominantly infrastructure and office space - are unsympathetic in terms of style, scale and massing with the rest of the area.

[79] The primarily Georgian section of the West End in the north forms part of Edinburgh's World Heritage Site along with the rest of the New Town.

[86][87] The food and drink sector is also prominent in the West End, with a number of restaurants across the district, and the Edinburgh tasting room of fine wine merchant Justerini & Brooks on Alva Street.

[88] The West End contains several consulates and High Commissions, including those of Germany (on Eglinton Crescent), Switzerland (on Manor Place), Turkey (on Drumsheugh Gardens), India, Norway and New Zealand (on Rutland Square), and Italy, Russia and Taiwan (on Melville Street).

Large employers in the West End include Standard Life, whose headquarters is located on the western side of Lothian Road.

[104][105] The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art lies on the far north-western edge of the West End, adjacent to the Dean Village.

[106] They can be accessed from the West End by foot via a footbridge on the Water of Leith walkway, or road via the Belford Bridge in the Dean Village.

[112] On the north West End, and Easter Coates border is the Edinburgh Life Tribute at the AIDS Memorial Park on the Water of Leith.

[124] The island tram stop at Coates Crescent on Shandwick Place was named West End - Princes Street prior to opening at the request of local traders.

[135][136] The 56m tower in the south-west corner was completed by 1882 under Robert Rowand Anderson, in the form of a Venetian campanile, modeled on that of San Giorgio Maggiore.