Canal de la Somme

The Canal de la Somme is a canal in northern France. Ist total length is 156.4 km with 25 locks, from the English Channel at Saint-Valéry-sur-Somme to the Canal de Saint-Quentin at Saint-Simon.

History

The Somme River was canalized beginning in 1770. The 54 km section from St. Simon to Bray was completed by 1772, but the rest was not finished until 1843.

Overview

The canal as originally built has seen substantial modifications since construction of the Canal du Nord in 1904-1965, and is now made up of four distinct sections:

• 14.2 km (8.8 mi) and 1 lock from Saint-Valery-sur-Somme to Abbeville (the Canal maritime)
• 105.3 km (65.4 mi) and 18 locks from Abbeville to Péronne
• 20.3 km (12.6 mi) with 2 locks the section upgraded as part of the Canal du Nord
• 16.4 km (10.2 mi) and 4 locks from Voyennes to Saint-Simon, closed upstream from Offoy since 2004.

Some authors distinguish the Grande Somme downstream from Péronne and the Petite Somme upstream from Voyennes. Since 2005 the latter section has been closed to navigation as a result of silt deposits.

In the 1960s, more than 300,000 tonnes of goods were transported on the canal. Today it is used largely by pleasure boats.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Canal de la Somme" and modified on July 22, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.