Every design for Chelles

Chelles lies in the eastern suburbs of Paris, with the Marne and the Canal de Chelles along its southern edge and the wooded slopes of Mont Guichet to the north. The town sits in the hollow of an old meander of the river, long since vanished, and the Marne is still everywhere in its ground, in the sand and gravel it left behind.

What makes Chelles unusual is how far back its name reaches. A nineteenth-century anthropologist found stone tools here by chance and named a whole stage of the Palaeolithic after the town. Centuries later Queen Balthild founded an abbey at the Merovingian villa of Calae, and Chelles grew around it. On the highest point, the hill known as the montagne de Chelles, stands the Fort de Chelles, and the Réserve naturelle régionale de Chelles keeps a patch of wild land within easy reach of the RER. Nearby, the Moulin du Sempin and the Musée des transports urbains, interurbains et ruraux add their own pieces to the story.

And down at the southern end, the towpath runs along the Marne, the river that made the place.