Paris Gate

En un regard

Le château en bref

Formerly the Holy Sepulchre Gate, the Paris Gate of Cambrai is a town gate of the châtelet type, construction of which began in 1390. The work was entrusted to Gilles Largent, master mason of the town of Saint-Quentin. Built of limestone on a sandstone base, about sixteen metres high, it features two large semicircular towers flanking the passage, a drawbridge whose grooves survive, a crenellated parapet with arrow slits and putlog holes for hoardings, and a passage fitted with double doors, a portcullis and three murder holes. At the end of the seventeenth century, Vauban had a horn-work of about seventy metres built in front of it. When the town was authorised in 1892 to dismantle its fortifications, the gate was preserved; the architect Verdez restored it in 1904, and its present appearance derives from that work. It has been listed as a monument historique by order of 6 May 1942.