Pont-Audemer

Pont-Audemer grew at a crossing of the Risle, among the river's many channels in western Normandy, near the Seine estuary. Water served its trades as well as giving access towards the sea. Leather tanning was a local speciality from the Middle Ages, and the town acquired a castle, walls and a communal charter as it prospered.

The Hundred Years' War brought severe destruction. French forces retook Pont-Audemer in 1449, and Charles VII granted the damaged town relief from taxation. Later extensions of the privilege required inhabitants to spend money each year on repairing the town fortifications. The town also suffered in the Wars of Religion. In the eighteenth century English workers and their families settled here, bringing new techniques to the long-established tanning trade.