Timeline

Key figures

Origin and history

The Church of the Immaculate Conception of Cambrai is built to respond to the demographic boom of the station district, born after the arrival of the railway in 1858. In 1851, the area outside the fortifications had only 200 inhabitants, but by 1872 it had reached 1,800. The request of a new church, made by a committee on 20 October 1872, was accepted on 8 November by the Archbishop of Cambrai. A subscription is launched, and Dron-Tournay offers the land.

The first stone was blessed on 16 November 1873 by Monnier, and the plans were entrusted to diocesan architect Henri de Baralle. The church, of neo-Roman style, was consecrated on November 17, 1878. Its development was part of the dismantling of the Cambrai fortifications in 1892, while the local population reached 3,600 in 1908. The interior was redesigned in 1987, in particular to modernize heating.

Today, the church serves as a bridge church for the parish of Saint-Vaast-Saint-Géry, hosting Sunday Masses alternating with the church of Saint-Louis and weekly services on Tuesday. It is also linked to the private school next to the Immaculate Conception. Its tower, 49 meters high with an arrow in slate, dominates the urban landscape.

The building, made of bricks with stone corbels, is 45 meters long for 15 wide. Its arrow, surmounted by a cross of 5 meters and a rooster of a metre, symbolizes its anchoring in the local religious and architectural heritage. The church thus illustrates the adaptation of Catholic worship to 19th-century industrialization and urban growth.

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