Channel of Sauldre

The channel of Sauldre is a channel of 46 km uniting Blancafort in the Cher, with Lamotte-Beuvron in the Loir-et-Cher. It passes a little to the north of Clémont and Brinon-on-Sauldre, and presents the characteristic unique in France to be completely isolated from the national river system, so that one could say that it is " a channel without tail nor tête".

History

The channel of Sauldre was designed with an aim of improving agriculture in the Sologne. It was to make it possible to bring to it Marne (natural mixture of limestone, sand and clay) abundant to the borders of the Country-Extremely, to amend the acid ground of an area of this unfertile fact. It was to also be usable for the drainage of the Sologne, very wet in much of places. The idea of this work to the very particular purpose returns to the engineer hydraulician Adhémar Barré of Saint-Coming (1797 - 1886) and to a notable room, Alexis Soyer (born in 1805, and deceased after 1864), mayor of Money-on-Sauldre (Cher).

The presence in Paris of a great number of unemployed the shortly after the closing of the national Ateliers, which one wished to move away from the capital because of their real or supposed revolutionary opinions, allowed the operational startup of this channel. The operation was decided and launched in a complete improvisation at the level governmental, and led on the ground under deplorable technical requirements. From June 1848 at February 1849, more than 1700 workmen Parisian - all volunteers, and not off-set as one sometimes wrote - form the Ateliers of militarily organized Sauldre , initially under the direction of Raphaël Pareto (1812 - 1882), civil engineer of Italian origin, successively placed under the authority of the civil engineers Henry Darcy, Charles Machart and Pierre-Dominique Bazaine (wire). After a fashion, they dig a few kilometers of the future channel in the area of Lamotte-Beuvron, until exhaustion of the appropriations, completely provided by the State.

Work is resumed in 1852 under the direction of Charles Machart, but in another spirit and different technical requirements, by calling upon companies of public works private. Although profiting from the personal support of the emperor Napoleon III, owner of the field of Lamotte-Beuvron, the business trails in length. Indeed, one does not arrive, at the ministerial level, to slice between two projects, one, minimal, of a channel limited to the junction between Lamotte-Beuvron and Blancafort, the other, much more ambitious - and expensive because its length would have been three times more important - integrating this section into a channel having to connect the Loire and Expensive. Ultimately, the cheapest solution tardily will be adopted. Work is completed in 1869, and the channel immediately brought into service.

As of 1876, the careers of Launay, bought by the State downstream from Blancafort, are in process of exhaustion. In 1881 the government decides the prolongation of the channel of 3,6 km, with three additional locks, upstream of Blancafort, to the marl-pits of the Sand pit. The first 19 locks being already numbered from 1 to 19, these three additional locks upstream receive the numbers has, B and C. work are carried out of 1882 with 1885. Begun thirty-six years earlier, the channel of Sauldre reaches its final length.

During a few years, the channel of Sauldre knows an intense activity (644 transport of marl by boats let us berrichons in 1874). But, in fact, it arrives too late: the competition of the railroad, real, is however not most important. The major fact is due to the fact that marling loses any interest with the adoption of the technique of liming, the Chaux being an amendment much lighter, of easier employment, and of more immediate effectiveness. Especially, the development of chemical industry and the manufacture of manure relegate marling to the row of the heavy and antiquated techniques. One realizes quickly there: from 31.170 tons of marl transported by the channel in 1874, one falls to 19.328 in 1902. The Guerre of 1914-1918 carries the blow of thanks to marling, because of the mobilization of a labor being lacking for the exploitation of the careers and the spreading of the amendment in the fields. In 1920, the channel of Sauldre records only one transport of 6.671 tons marl, 969 tons in 1922, and only 172 tons in 1923. Having lost any profitability the careers of Blancafort must close, and fault of traffic, the channel of Sauldre is striped list of the inland waterways by the Order in Council of the December 28th 1926. During a few years, until in 1941, of rare boats still circulate for the transport of materials, in particular of stones for the maintenance of the roads and the ways.

From now on useless, the locks are walled the ones after the others, so that with less of work of rehabilitation, a pleasure sailing is not yet possible nowadays whereas it would be of great interest for the area. However the tow path, transformed into way of great excursion, attracts increasingly many tourists, allured by the calm one and the charm of the landscapes of the crossed Sologne.

Features

46.810 meters length, the channel of Sauldre has a reduced width (7,70 meters on average), lower than the Gabarit Freycinet adopted under the Third Republic. One adopted from the start the width of the Canal of Berry builds 1810 with 1840 according to the English practices, with some 2,70 approximately 30 m meters broad and long locks.

The channel of Sauldre is a junction canal by derivation, without summit pond. It joint Sauldre in Beuvron by marrying a level line until this one passes on the slope of Beuvron. Then it really starts to go down towards this one.

Its normal depth (" mouillage") is of 1,50 meter. It is crossed by 48 bridges. A total unevenness of 63 meters is repurchased by a succession of 22 locks, a minimal working length of 27,75 meters, and a width of 2,70 meters. The locks are numbered from 1 to 19 between Aunay and Lamotte-Beuvron, while the three first, built more tardily, carry the numbers has, B and C.

The water supply is done by Sauldre, initially derived in an underground drain starting from the farm from the Hospital, then a few kilometers downstream by the initial hydrant of Aunay, three lower locks, and finally by the tank of the pond of the Well, itself filled by the channel just above the lock n°1 Fouchères, of a surface of 180 hectares, being able to accumulate 6.200.000 cubic meters of water, so that the channel, even in the driest years, forever missed water. In fact, the pond of the Well is a tank-plug.

The transshipment of the marl of the channel to the railroad of Orleans, in Lamotte-Beuvron, was done by tipcarts until 1873. This date a junction of railroad of a few hundred meters allowed the direct loading of the coaches by means of a fixed-jib crane of 4 tons, thus reducing the handling charges.

Navigation

The boats circulating on the channel of Sauldre, on the spot built in Blancafort and Argent or borrowed from the Channel of Berry, were of " type; berrichon" , i.e. corresponding to the standards of the channel of Berry, a reduced width (see above). A " berrichon" was 27 meters long on 2,50 to 2,60 meters broad, with a draft of 1,20 meter. It could transport 50 to 55 tons of marl. It comprised a cabin with the back being used as housing to the two boatmen. The number of boats in circulation varied according to the importance of marling, and declined constantly. In 1876 it was of 16; in 1896, of 14; in 1902, of 13; in 1907, of 11; in 1912, of 8; in 1921, of 6. These boats bore the names of Bayard, Sailor-hat, Surcouf, France, Paris, Espoir, Pilote, Terrible, Solognot, Neptune, Alexis-Silk…

Traction was mainly human until worms 1900. Two men, or, for richest, one or two mules towed the boat since the tow path. The outward journey and return since Blancafort took 6 days, unloading with Lamotte-Beuvron included/understood. After 1900, traction was exclusively animal, with an ass or a mule. A boatman guided the animal, while the other held the rudders (the " raquettes"). The return ticket then did not require more than three or four days.

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