Budafok cave dwelling

The Barlanglakás exhibition in Budafok (the 22nd district of Budapest) is located on Veréb Street.

On the hillsides descending from the Danube, in the area formerly called Promontor, there were human dwellings carved into the ground for several centuries. In 1966, after the last resident moved out, the caves were filled in.

The first period

We do not know its exact beginning. A characteristic of this early period is that “houses” were built in the large caves on the hillside. Only the side walls of these were erected. No roof was needed here. The houses attached to the two sides of the caves left the central spaces free, thus forming rows of streets.

From the memoirs of Archduke Joseph we know that when he visited there were 40 houses. Half a century later they counted 120. In 1838 Carl Vasquez also recorded such a inhabited cave in a drawing. In 1860 a similar house was found on the side of Gellért Hill (a rope‑puller’s family lived in it). In Budafok these dwellings gradually disappeared because of landslides. This marked the end of the first period.

According to an 1867 report about Promontor: “Two‑thirds of the produce is red, one‑third white wine, whose quality the favorable cellars on the hillside not only preserve but also improve. Some of these cellars contain the comforts of both wine houses and vineyard dwellings, equipped with colors (half‑metals) and stables as well. In the lower part of the village a whole rock street can be seen, made of cellars and cave‑houses. The diligent population actively engages in stone quarrying, which supplied many sandstone blocks for the capital’s constructions.” The accompanying illustration also shows the “Promontor cave dwellings” (Lüders’ drawing).

The second period

In the second half of the 19th century, during the acceleration of capitalist development, the city grew to previously unknown dimensions. New districts were created. During the capital’s building projects, the stone from the Budafok hillside also began to be mined. From the 1870s onward, former documents (newspapers) more frequently reported on the square‑cut pits in which doors and windows were placed. Initially they were made for personal use, later also for sale.

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At this time the presented cave dwelling, or cave cell, appeared on Veréb Street. The latter term was used when more than one dwelling was built on a courtyard on a single plot. As a result of capitalism, in the rapidly developing capital city the number of inhabited caves multiplied quickly. At the turn of the 20th century it belonged to the area's sad landmarks and was also recorded abroad. In the shadow of the capital's natural beauties and splendid buildings, not only in Budafok but also at several points of the city (for example in the Mária Valéria settlement) many thousands lived in cave dwellings, pit districts.

Capital city pit districts existed in several places within the capital's area in the 20th century.

stone mine cave dwellings

Mária Valéria settlement

Ferencváros small forest

Váci út pit dwellings

In Budafok the exhibition on Veréb Street has preserved, as a lesson and testimony for posterity, the apartment of the late Mrs. Győzőné Tóth. The exhibition was organized by the Budapest History Museum and directed its reconstruction work.