Built between two arms of the Risle and nicknamed the Little Norman Venice, Pont-Audemer owes its particularity to its combination of streams, bourgeois homes, half-timbered houses, and Norman buildings. As its various names (Deux-Ponts, Pontem Aldemari) translate, the town was built on the most convenient crossing point on the river. Pont-Audemer also owes its commercial development to the presence of a port from the middle of the 11th century. Commercial relations were soon attested between the town and England, from where tanners came to settle. This trade is at the origin of the network of canals crisscrossing Pont-Audemer and used to wash skins.