page_title: Cambrai
section_title: Drainage work
hierarchical_section_title: Cambrai / Urbanism / Urban morphology / Drainage work
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: carte postale ancienne (début XXe siècle?) montrant la porte des Arquets et l'Escaut à Cambrai (Nord, France)
context_page_description: Cambrai, formerly Cambray and historically in English Camerick or Camericke, is a commune in the Nord department and in the Hauts-de-France region of France on the Scheldt river, which is known locally as the Escaut river.
  A sub-prefecture of the department, Cambrai is a town which had 32,518 inhabitants in the Census of 2009. It is in the heart of the urban unit of Cambrai which, with 47,138 inhabitants, ranks as 7th largest of the department. Its urban area, a more extensive range, included 65,986 inhabitants in 2009. With Lille and the towns of the former Nord-Pas de Calais Mining Basin, it is also part of the Metropolitan area of Lille which has more than 3.8 million inhabitants.
  Towards the end of the Roman Empire, Cambrai replaced Bavay as the "capital" of the land of the Nervii. At the beginning of the Merovingian era, Cambrai became the seat of an immense archdiocese covering all the right bank of the Scheldt and the centre of a small ecclesiastical principality, roughly coinciding with the shire of Brabant, including the central part of the Low Countries. The bishopric had some limited secular power and depended on the Holy Roman Empire until annexation to France in 1678.
context_section_description: Cambrai is built on the edge of the wide marshy area of the Scheldt Valley encircling the western part of the city, the Château de Selles to the north at the gate of the Holy Sepulchre in the south: Wet gardens, ponds, meadows, ponds and marsh formed a flood zone sometimes also used for the defence of the city. The suburb of Cantimpré, linking the ancient heart to the Scheldt below to the west, had raised several metres. The two arms of the Scheldt (Escaut), the Escautins, are separated before entering the medieval town: The Escauette and the Clicotiau, which bathed the walls of the old urban core. These streams were probably due to man's hand because they do not correspond to natural landforms. However, it is unknown whether their origin dates back to the Roman era or is from a later time.
  Throughout the Middle Ages, and again in modern times, the Scheldt and its arms required constant work: Repair of levees, enhancement of pavement, straightening of the bed, as well as the digging of ditches to regulate the course of the river, prevent floods and ensure as far as possible a steady water level, on which the mills and tanneries depended. Despite these works, floods were frequent. The absorption of rainwater and household water descending from the upper areas of the city was also a problem. Bouly spoke in 1842, in his History of Cambrai and le Cambrésis, of "fast torrents [stormwater] formed today by rolling up the Scheldt". In the Middle Ages the "flow of el kayère" (or "flow of the chair"), close to the current Grand-Place, was dug a reservoir for "water courses of the falling waters of the sky", i.e. to control the flow of rainwater. In the 19th century aqueducts were built to carry these waters, and the streets were paved. Furthermore, in 1926 a drainage sewer was built at Rue Blériot.
  The draining of the wetlands that surround the town began in 1804. The work ended in 1951 with the drying of the small stream of Saint Benoît near the Liberty Stadium, itself built on this wetland which dominated the ancient city walls, and in 1953 with the covering of the Clicotiau.
caption: Entry of the Scheldt into the city through the gate of Arquets (postcard from the early 20th century)
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