The fountain of Watroz - Spa

Avenue du Château was the name given in the 1960s to the small road leading to the former model farm , a large Tudor-style building built in 1858 by the architect Adolphe Thirion for Edouard Joseph Adolphe Simonis, a powerful wool manufacturer from Verviers.

At the end of this gravel road, on the right, in a private property with a large pond fed by a tributary of the Sauvenière , is the fountain of Watroz . This pond is not open to the public.

"Watroz" was a name given long ago to the marshy meadows at the bottom of the stream coming from Sauvenière , sometimes called the Orléans stream . A spelling from the first half of the 16th century: "ware troux" gives an idea of the etymology of this place name. "Ware" means uncultivated, muddy land and "troux (trô)" means hole, because these meadows are at the bottom.

The pouhon which rises at this location was of course given the same name; in 1559, Lymborh (the author of the first monograph devoted to the waters of Spa) even referred to it as: "la fontaine dite du Woitrou".

In 1735, we read in the "Amusemens des Eaux de Spa" that a small, very neglected fountain, called the Watroz , is situated between the Septentrion and the Orient, half a league from Spa and about a quarter of an hour from La Sauvenière. According to the author , the fountain rises at the bottom of a marshy meadow and is not very frequented because of its very inconvenient location . Some people, he also says, go there to drink the water as a purification, but they only go there in dry weather, because its low location means that the water is easily altered by rain.

In the 19th century, little or nothing was said about Watroz in the books that were published about Spa. This is what Albin Body wrote in 1872 in his guide to walks in Spa: " Inaccessible scrub and clumps of trees form the borders of the marshy meadows. If abundant grasses or strong ferns do not hide the place from you, you will find the old and famous Watroz. This source, which in the first half of the last century was still one of the official fountains and which was recommended by doctors almost as much as its neighbour the Tonnelet, has fallen into deep oblivion. The place where it once rose has been found with great difficulty and not the slightest vestige remains of the niche that was built there".

Today, a large pond sits on this once marshy valley floor. It is fed by a tributary of the Sauvenière flowing below and is on private property. The fountain, which is not open to the public, rises near the pond.

The fountain and its surroundings can be seen in an engraving by H. Godin from 1782 .

Willem Vandenameele