Calle de las Aguas

The name documents the abundance of springs that surfaced in this low part of the old Morería. The soundest explanation comes from Peñasco and Cambronero (1889): the dip in the ground, combined with the springs, formed large puddles and mud that gave the street its popular name. A secondary hypothesis, recorded by Gato por Madrid and the blog El ático de Aguas, attributes the name to a resident owner named Juan de Aguas who lived there in the 17th century, though his documentary trace is weak. The legend of Arab baths demolished by Alfonso X circulates in several sources, but none backs it with an original document.

Calle de las Aguas slopes down from Calle de Don Pedro to Calle de Tabernillas, split by the Carrera de San Francisco, in the heart of what was the medieval Morería. The name hides no mystery: the ground falls toward the old San Pedro stream, and springs surfaced here that filled the spouts of the San Pedro el Viejo fountain and watered the Pozacho orchards. When it rained, water was everywhere. The name already appears as “Aguas” on Texeira’s 1656 map. Répide, born a step away from here, painted it as still and peaceful, almost all old houses. On the corner with the Carrera de San Francisco, Antonio Apruzzese kept his workshop, a builder and player of barrel organs, son of the Italian credited with bringing the instrument to Madrid around 1890.

Its names

Calle de las AguasAnterior a 1656

Sources (8)

Its names

Crossings