Channel of Saint-Quentin

The channel of Saint-Quentin , length 92,5 km, ensures the junction between the Oise, the Somme and the the Scheldt and connects the Paris basin and the North of France and the Belgium. It is composed of two sections:

a first, in the past named Crozat channel, of Oise (Chauny) to the Sum (Saint-Simon) and to the Channel of the Sum;
the channel of Saint-Quentin itself of the Sum in the Scheldt (Cambric).

It continues:

In the south of Chauny by the side Channel in Oise;
In the Cambric north by the Channel of the Scheldt which joined the Canal the Dunkirk-Scheldt.

History

The Crozat channel

A first channel, uniting Oise with the Sum, had been projected under the ministries of Mazarin and Colbert. Work began in 1728 but was abandoned in front of the extent of the expenditure. The project was then taken again by Antoine Crozat, marquis of Chatel and financial rich person.

This one initially formed part of the company of the sior of Marcy, then takes work as its responsibility; it modifies the initial layout, which is worth with this water way to cross Tergnier. It is made owner with perpetuity of this channel, and lord of the manor of Vendeuil. Work is entrusted to the troops of the king divided into 4 camps located at Fargniers, Mennessis, Remigny and Jussy; this way, local labor takes part in it little.

With died of Antoine Crozat in 1738 only 13 kilometers out of the 41 envisaged were completed, as well as the port of Saint-Quentin. This first channel, which will be finished to Saint-Quentin only in 1776, will carry the name of Crozat channel (or channel of Picardy) until the beginning of the 20th century.

The channel of Saint-Quentin

A military engineer, named Devic (or of Vicq), proposed later to join together the Sum in the Scheldt by boring a channel between Saint-Quentin and Cambrai.

The difficulty was to cross the chalky plate which separates the valleys from the Sum, the Scheldt and the Scarpe and to feed the channel with the summit pond, i.e. with the Watershed. This high point of the channel (84 Mr.) is on the section of the channel lain between Lesdins and Vendhuile.

Devic proposed to cross the plate by an underground channel, in the hope which the channel would be naturally fed by the Waters seepage and water of the Ground water. The idea, which appeared too ambitious at the time, was abandoned. It was taken again in 1766 by the engineer Pierre-Joseph Laurent, who modified the plans of Devic and directed work. Those however were stopped a few years, in 1775, because of died later of Laurent on October 12th, 1773 and the lack of funds due to the war of America. This first gallery was entirely abandoned. In 1802 Napoleon gave the order to resume work according to the plans of Devic. They were finished in 1809, at the price of the boring of two undergrounds, “small the 1098 meters long underground” between Lesdins and Lehaucourt and “large the underground underground” or “of Riqueval”, length 5670 meters, between Bellenglise and Vendhuile. The channel was inaugurated in large pump on April 28th 1810 by the Napoleon Emperor 1st and the empress Marie-Louise.

One realized quickly that in period of dryness the summit pond was insufficiently fed: it was thus decided to bring water to the channel by a drain of food since the Noirieux (or Noirrieu), affluent of Oise, to the channel with Lesdins. The drain of Noirieux, long, 20 km was dug in 1826. It is underground between Vadencourt and Cross-Fonsommes. The channel is also fed by the ground water, the Scheldt and the Sum on the level of the pond of Isle to Saint-Quentin.

The channel of Saint-Quentin was carried at the 19th century with the Gabarit Freycinet: it is enough in fact to dig it more, the dimensions of the Freycinet gauge taking again essentially those of the barges which circulated on the channel of Saint-Quentin.

The channel knew an intense traffic, being used for transport of coal and cereals towards Paris, until 1966, date of the opening of the channel of North.

Remarkable works on the layout

Underground of Riqueval and Tronquoy;
Tubular bridges of Crèvecœur-on-the Scheldt and the Noyelles-on-Scheldt.

Course and crossed communes

Sources

channels of North and the Pas-de-Calais , Geoffroy Deffrennes and Samuel Dhote, Ouest-France Editions, 2006

Random links: