Lying to the north of Ferry Road in Edinburgh and to the west of Pilton, Muirhouse is a public housing estate begun in 1953. It takes its name from the Tudor-Gothic mansion built on Marine Drive in 1832 for the Davidson family, who were wealthy merchants trading in Rotterdam. The estate was built to encompass mixed styles of housing, including regular white boxes, with low-pitched roofs, and large tower blocks, mostly constructed in the 1960s. The area has suffered from significant social problems. From the mid-1980s Muirhouse, together with the neighbouring West Pilton have been undergoing significant renewal, with many of the tired and vandalised council-owned blocks being replaced by private housing. Muirhouse suffers unemployment rates of more than three times the average for Edinburgh, with a larger proportion of long-term unemployment.
