Buza Péter: Spring and Fountains - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1994)

Hill. Of the springs mentioned so far, the one nearest to the Castle Hill (at a distance of about two kilometres as the crow flies) welled forth by the former Servite Cottage, i.e. on the right hand side of the lower section of Diana út. When Istenhegyi út was built, this spring was simply channelled off to the drain.

The waters of these three, geologically related springs were collected in a cistern in Orbán tér, near the location of the one mentioned above. However, there are data indicating that they were collected in Vérmező, by the so-called Sváb Hill bridge, which crosses the Ördögárok [Devil’s Ditch], Based on evidence available today, the matter cannot be decided. The direction of the pipeline running to Castle Hill is itself hypothtet- ical, even though one author, the eminent archaeologist László Zolnay, based his theory on the fragmentary findings of excavations. He supposes that the lines from Bélakút and Városkút ran down to the Városmajor region following the axis of the Ördögárok, while the waters of Sváb-kút probably naturally flowed down along the line of today’s Istenhegyi út. After arriving at Vérmező, the water must have ascended to Castle Hill itself using the force of gravity, obeying the physical law known as the theory of communicating vessels.

The Gothic well-house of Városkút.

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