Calle de los Caños Viejos

Calle de los Caños Viejos runs down from Bailén towards Segovia, near plazuela de la Morería. Before the Viaduct the route went the other way, climbing up from Segovia, which is why it was called a slope (cuesta). The San Pedro stream ran here, supplying the local fountains for centuries. Jaime Oliver Asín argued a striking idea: the very name of Madrid would come from that stream, called Mayrit in Arabic texts, a word pointing to a mother watercourse. If he was right, this street sits over the origin of the city’s name. The fountain was first known as the pillars of San Pedro. When the Canal de Isabel II network arrived in the 19th century, the stone pipes fell out of use. A building from 1990 preserved on its façade a stretch of ashlar with a coat of arms carved around 1650: the oldest heraldic piece in Madrid to join the bear and the strawberry tree.