Ascenseur à Bateaux des Fontinettes

The Les Fontinettes boat lift stands near Arques, close to Saint-Omer in the Pas-de-Calais department, and ranks among the last surviving hydraulic boat lifts of the 19th century in France. Constructed between 1883 and 1888 to a design by British engineer Edwin Clark — who also worked on the Anderton Boat Lift in England — the structure bridged a 13-metre height difference between the River Aa and the Canal de Neuffossé. Its operating principle was elegant for the era: two counterbalanced water troughs moved in opposition, requiring minimal energy to raise or lower canal barges. Decommissioned in 1967 and now classified as a historic monument, the iron structure can be explored up close, its machinery preserved in place as a quiet testament to the industrial canal engineering that once powered northern France's freight network.