TheWest Port is a street inEdinburgh'sOld Town, just south ofEdinburgh Castle. It runs from Main Point (the junction of Bread Street, Lauriston Street, East Fountainbridge and High Riggs) to the southwest corner of theGrassmarket.
The street takes its name from the westernmost of the "ports" orgates in theFlodden Wall. The gate stood at the Grassmarket and opened onto the suburb ofPortsburgh until it was demolished in the 1780s.[1]
Wester Portsburgh, as the area around the West Port was formerly known, was the main street through the western part of theburgh ofPortsburgh[2] - aburgh of barony from 1649[3] to 1856.[4]
The nameWest Port originally referred only to the gate itself, but was used for the entire length of the street leading away from the gate in maps from around 1837 onwards.[5]Wester Portsburgh still appeared as the name of the street on maps as late as 1831.[6]
Portsburgh can also be seen as the name for the same street in a map from 1836.[7] However, this does not serve to distinguish it from the eastern part of Portsburgh (Easter Portsburgh), which was still part of the same burgh at that date, the two parts of Portsburgh having their own administrative systems andbaillies.[8]
King Charles I entered Edinburgh by the West Port in the year of his Scottish Coronation, 1633.
"In 1650, when an English invasion was expected, many houses in Potterrow, as well as the West Port, were demolished by order of the magistrates, that the guns of the castle, and those on the city wall might have free action to play upon the enemy".[9]
TheWest Port murders were so named as many of the victims were tempted back to Hare's lodgings in Tanner's Close, off the West Port, to be murdered.[11] The site is now occupied by Argyle House.
The"West Port Experiment" was a model for parochial engagement, conceived byThomas Chalmers, with a church/school built on the south side of the street to facilitate this.[12]
Portsburgh Church is on a buildings at risk register.[13]
TheVennel off the junction of West Port and the Grassmarket was used in the film 'The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie' (1969) when Brodie takes her girls on a walk through the Old Town, ending up in Greyfriars Kirkyard.
TheArt NouveauSalvation Army Women's Hostel at the corner of the Grassmarket,The Vennel[14] and the West Port was built in 1910 and isC Listed.[15]Edinburgh College of Art, purchased and used the Hostel, in addition to the next-door Portsburgh Church, entered via the Vennel. Planning permission was granted in October 2007 for the two buildings to be changed to serviced apartments.[16]
The name of Portsburgh Square[17] on the north side of West Port is a reminder of the area's former name.
Dominating the north side of the West Port at its junction with Lady Lawson Street isArgyle House, built in 1968 to designs by Michael Laird and Partners.[18] 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.
Westport 102 was constructed on the West Port side of the block between Lady Lawson Street and Lauriston Street[20] on the site of the oldPost Office headquarters, which famously collapsed during demolition in 2007, leading to several roads being closed in the area for an extended period of time.[21]
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