Rozmaring Cave

Rozmaring Cave is one of the caves located in the Budai Landscape Protection Area of the Danube–Ipoly National Park, in District II of Budapest. It is the only existing cave of Upper Kecske Hill.

Description

It opens at the base of a rock wall on the southwestern side of Upper Kecske Hill, in an abandoned quarry, not far from the quarry entrance, to the west, on the left. The right side of its entrance is a short, built stone wall. The stone wall covers the natural entrance and therefore the cave may have been used as a storage.

It formed in Eocene limestone. It consists of a winding main branch and a side branch. One passage was formed along a nearly north–south, wide calcite vein. In a fissure, crystals five to eight centimeters high developed. In this passage, large dome chambers two metres long and 1.2 metres wide can be observed and a primary cavity with a calcite‑coated wall was created along the flat surface of the western wall of the passage. Such a passage is rare in water‑filled caves. Small pea‑size stones also formed in the dry, unrestricted cave, whose entrance does not require a permit. The cave can be traversed with basic caving equipment, simply walkable, but the side branch can only be seen while kneeling. Denevér beetles and daytime eye‑shades can also sometimes be observed inside.

The cave also appears in the literature under the names Upper Kecskehegy 1st rock cavity (Kordos 1984) and Upper Kecskehegy 1st cavity (Bertalan 1976). In 1983 the cave was first called Rozmaring Cave in the literature (Kraus 1983). The cave received the name Rozmaring Cave because the quarry belonged to the Rozmaring Producer Cooperative.

Research History

The cavities of the Upper Kecske Hill quarry in Óbuda are mentioned in the study *The Caves of the Buda Hills* by Sándor Leél‑Őssy, published in 1957, and their locations are marked on a site map. In 1958, cavers of the City Planning Cave Research Group explored the cavities and caves of the operating mine of Upper Kecske Hill.

In the 1958 book *Budapest természeti képe* several small cave entrances are mentioned, which were in the quarry on Felső-Kecske Hill, and on one illustration a cave sign can be seen on the side of Felső-Kecske Hill. Among the quarry cavities two caves are described in detail. One of them is the Rozmaring Cave. The book states that it formed in nummulitic limestone along two cross‑directional fissures. At the southwestern entrance of the quarry, opening westward, there is a roughly 15 metre long, probably artificially opened steam‑source cave. Its first section, about 5 metres long, slopes slightly toward the southwest, then turns west and northwest, breaking in an elbow shape. From the turn a short side branch about 2.5 metres long extends almost due south, which has collapsed at the end. The main branch is about one and a half metres high and one and a half metres wide, which sometimes widens upward and sideways due to a large bulb‑shaped chamber about one to one and a half metres in diameter. The water dissolution is clearly observable on its ceiling and side walls. There is sediment in it, but no cave clay.

The 1959 book *Budapest természeti földrajza*, which saw the light of day, mentions that besides the more important and interesting caves described in Budafok, there are several dozen small insignificant cavities in the Buda Hills. Among these, the János-hegy passage, the Óbuda Kecske Hill and Felső‑Kecske Hill, the large quarry cavities of Mátyás Hill, the smaller cavities in the Csiki Hills (Odvas Hill, Kecske Hill), the Apáthy rock and the Mariaremete quarry cavities, as well as the Hosszúerdő‑hegy cave, are probably of steam‑water origin. Some of these are partially artificial. On one illustration in the publication a cave sign is visible on the side of Felső‑Kecske Hill.

The Városterv Cave Exploration Group investigated the caves in the quarry on Upper Kecske Hill in 1960, 1961 and 1962. The group members prepared a draft plan map of the cavity they named the Four Corridor cave. In the guidebook titled Budai Mountains Guidebook, published in 1966, the Rozmaring Cave is briefly described. According to the description it is a V‑shaped, receding and inward‑sloping rock cavity. In the manuscript written by Bertalan Károly, completed in 1976, the description of the Upper Kecske Hill cavities is found on cards 22, 23, 24 and 24/a. On card number 22 the Rozmaring Cave is described as Upper Kecske Hill cavity 1. The cave was described based on three publications written by Leél‑Őssy Sándor, Láng Sándor and Marosi Sándor. According to the card it is a 10–15 meter long, corridor‑like, freely accessible tourist attraction. Its entrance is open and higher than a person.

Sándor Kraus first visited it on April 6, 1978. At that time he studied its geology and prepared a draft plan map of the cave. The description from the 1966 guidebook is repeated in the Budai Mountains guidebook published in 1982. Sándor Kraus, I. Varga and Károly Horváth surveyed a part of the cave in 1983. Using the survey data, Sándor Kraus drew the draft plan map of the Rozmaring Cave (Felső-Kecske-hegy, cave cadastral area: 4763) and two length‑section maps (one with a 240°–60° direction and one with a 354°–174° direction) on December 19, 1983. The sheet containing the plan map marks the east direction. The drawings were published in the 1983 MKBT Report together with the cave description. According to the description, cemented clay and debris are present at the ends of the passages, therefore they can be broken. The cave in the Budai Mountains (Felső‑Kecskehegyi 1st rock cavity) appears in the national cave list of the book *Caves of Hungary* published in 1984. Associated with the list is a 1:500 000 scale map showing the geographical location of the caves of the Danube‑Zug Mountains, indicating the cave’s geographical position.