Pays de Caux - Geography

Geography

The Pays de Caux is a plateau of Upper Cretaceous chalk, like that which forms the North and South Downs in southern England. Its surface is an undulating plateau but the seaward side has been eroded by the waves so that the coast is formed of high white cliffs in which the small valleys which inland, form the undulations, are truncated leaving what are known locally as valleuses, steep-sided notches in the face of the cliff. They are more or less deeply cut and some form the sites of small towns such as Étretat. The formations left in the eroded cliff there have long attracted artists. See the photograph where Étretat lies to the right, in the valleuse beyond the first ridge.

The main towns in the north are on the coast, Fécamp and Étretat. Dieppe, is towards the margin of the region, lying as it does on the same geological fault as formed the Pays de Bray. This fault gave rise to the deep harbour which the Northmen found when they arrived. (The Swedish for deep is djup.) The towns on the plateau are generally small. Of these, the larger, such as Yvetot, Bolbec and Lillebonne are towards the south, on the Rouen-Le Havre axis. The site of Le Havre was once of the Pays de Caux but the town has developed into an entity with a separate nature.

The population density of the Pays de Caux is a little above the French average having developed fisheries, on the coast, and flax growing and weaving, on the plateau, as traditional industries. The estuarine ports to the south developed trade up-river towards Rouen and, once hostilities between the Normans and the French had been settled, with Paris. In more recent times, urbanization has spread from Le Havre and more recently still, from the new industrial polder in the Seine Estuary.

The plateau's exposure to the winds of the sea may account for one of the features of the rural architecture of the region; the plain, unadorned farmhouses in farmsteads, typically enclosed by high earth banks, walls and a sheltering square of trees. (see also Architecture of Normandy).