Calle de la Cava de San Miguel

Sol

The name gathers the two elements that define the street: “cava”, the medieval word for the outer defensive ditch of a wall, and “San Miguel”, after the parish of San Miguel de los Octoes that stood beside the site. When the ditch was filled and the street opened, around 1567, the neighbouring church’s name was fixed to the road.

Walk along the Cava de San Miguel and you are treading the ditch of a vanished wall. Between the 11th and 12th centuries, Madrid was girded by a Christian wall running from Puerta Cerrada to Puerta de Guadalajara, and the street still traces the exact curve of that hollow. The change came around 1566, when Philip II added the Plaza del Arrabal to the town: the wall fell, the ditch was filled, and a street was left with that undulating profile. There lies one of the secrets anyone can see in passing: the odd-numbered houses widen at the base and curve their façades because they act as a retaining wall, holding up the slope on which the Plaza Mayor stands. Almost all from the 17th century, they rose to eight storeys on the ditch side, and for centuries were the tallest houses in Madrid. The name came from the church of San Miguel de los Octoes, documented since 1202 and demolished by order of Joseph I in 1809. On its site rose the Mercado de San Miguel, opened in 1916.

Its names

  • Foso de la muralla cristiana (sin nombre viario)11th-16th centuries
  • Cava del Arcángelh. 1567 – 16th-17th centuries
  • Cava de la Puerta Cerrada16th-17th centuries (uso paralelo)
  • Calle de la Cava de San Miguel1656 (1.ª documentación cartográfica)
  • Cava de San Miguel1769 – presente
Sources (9)

Crossings