N. Kósa Judit - Szablyár Péter: Underground Buda - Our Budapest (Budapest, 2002)

Turkish cellars, wells and caverns - the Castle Caves of Buda

of 1932. "The explorations I have conducted,” writes Kadié, "have enabled me to assess the scientific, tourist and defence-related importance of the Castle District’s rock caves. I have dedicated my best efforts to the satisfactory recognition, cleaning and tidying-up of these caves whose existence, but not importance, has been known for decades and, rescuing them from oblivion, to exploit them for the purposes of tourism and air-raid defence."

Kadié made a detailed plan to explore the cave cellars, and he managed to gain the support of the municipality of the first district for the realisation of the plan. Using its own financial resources, the district commissioned János Mottl to have the cavities beneath Szentháromság tér cleaned and to have the hitherto separate cellars connected. The caves, so far separated from each other, which were now connected by holes cut in the walls between them or via "nether piths”, were also provided with lighting. In 1935, the Hungarian Association for Cave Research was commissioned by the municipality of Budapest to maintain the Castle Hill cave. Under the aegis of the association, a Castle Hill Committee was set up and entrusted with the management of the cave; with the support of the municipality the conjoining upper cellars were in fact tidied up in the same year.

The first restored section of the cave was opened to the public on 17 August 1935. At the time, the interconnected rock cellars, which were accesCntrance to the Rock Hospital in Lovas út

31