1st February 2015
A Message to our Donors and Supporters from the Project
Hougoumont UK Appeal Committee
To mark the opening of this bicentenary year I am writing on behalf of the
Appeal Committee to those who have so generously supported Project
Hougoumont with a summary of the progress that has been made in 2014.
The South Front repaired, but still raw. January 2015
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Repair of Buildings and Walls
Work began in October 2013 under the excellent team appointed by the
Intercommunale de Bataille Waterloo 1815 comprising project manager,
Baudouin Gallez, architects, DDGM of Brussels, and building contractor, Bajart.
The contract is on target to be completed by the end of May.
The 1899 extension to the gardener’s house has been removed. Roof-timbers
have been repaired and roof-coverings renewed. Window-frames have been
replaced, but the blocked-up openings which contributed to Hougoumont’s
fortress-like appearance in 1815 have been left in that state. The walls of the
courtyard have been lime-washed, but the brickwork of the outward
elevations has been left exposed, as it was in June 1815. A 4-bed letting
apartment has been created on the first and second floors of the gardener’s
house and an apartment for the custodian on the ground floor.
West door in 2013 and in 2014 after removal of brick infill and replacement of
missing masonry.
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The West Door which played an important role in the battle had been bricked
up since 1840. It has now been reopened and will be the visitors’ entrance.
The great barn has been made weather-tight and the massive timbers of its
internal structure cleaned and repaired.
The famous wall which encloses the site has been repaired and stabilised ready
for the recreation of the improvised firing platforms described in
contemporary accounts of the battle.
The repaired south side of garden wall which faced the French line. January 2015
The repaired north side of garden wall showing the restored buttresses. January 2015.
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The footings of the walls of the buildings which were destroyed by the fire
caused by Jerome Bonaparte’s bombardment have been excavated and
exposed. They will now be capped at ground-level, so that visitors can see
where the lost buildings once stood.
We have greatly appreciated the generous spirit in which the Intercommunale
has welcomed the experts Project Hougoumont has called in to advise on some
specialised aspects of building conservation.
The cost of repairing the buildings and walls and installing services is 2,140,000
euros, of which 700,000 euros has been funded by UK donors and the UK
government. The government of the Walloon Region has contributed 900,000
euros and the balance has come from Belgian commercial sponsors, including
Breguet, the famous Swiss firm of watchmakers.
The North Gates
New wooden gates to replace those destroyed in 1815 have been made in the
estate yard at Petworth, the family home of Lieutenant-Colonel Henry
Wyndham, one of the 1815 ‘Closers’. The cost of installing them and repairing
the gate-piers has been funded by a group of anonymous donors.
The piers of the north gate repaired & ready to receive the new gates. January 2015.
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The Landmark Trust
Just before Christmas it was announced that the Landmark Trust had
submitted the only viable tender for the lease of the apartment on the first
and second floors of the gardener’s house. So, our dream of creating a place
where people can stay and study the battlefield by day and night and in all
kinds of weather has come true. The windows of the light and airy apartment
look into the courtyard in one direction and towards the position of the French
line in the other. The Landmark Trust assures us that it will be furnished and
ready for occupation by 17 June.
The Monument
The competition for a design for the monument commemorating the British
soldiers who fought at Waterloo was won by Vivien Mallock. Her moving
composition shows two battle-weary soldiers struggling to close the gates. In
October permission was given for the monument to be sited near the north
wall of the great barn, close to the northern entrance. The monument is being
funded by Mr Barry van Danzig, trustee of Project Hougoumont and member
of our committee.
Plaster maquette for Vivien Mallock’s memorial to the British soldiers who fought at
Waterloo which is to be erected at Hougoumont to mark the bicentenary of the battle. The
doors will be of limestone and the figures cast in bronze.
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The Hougoumont Crucifix
The 16th-century wooden crucifix damaged during the battle, whose missing
feet and charred shins have been described by countless visitors, was stolen in
2011. In October 2014 it was rediscovered in a private garage in the nearby
village of Braine L’Alleud. A woodwork conservator from the UK has advised
on the repair and stabilisation of this hauntingly evocative witness to the
events of 18 June 1815. After conservation it will be rehung in the chapel
above the west door where it was during the battle. Generous donations from
retired Coldstream Guards officers will fund the furnishing of the chapel as a
place of peace, memory and reflection.
The restored Crucifix hanging in the chapel before it was stolen in 2011 and, right, after
recovery in October 2014.
The Scenography
We want every visitor to leave Hougoumont knowing what happened there on
18 June 1815 and why it was important. At best, they should be so moved by
the experience that it will be fixed in their memory for ever. The contract for
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the scenography has been awarded to Tempora, the Brussels-based firm of
animators and exhibition-designers. In the former milking parlour and
cowsheds there will be an exhibition of badges, buttons, fragments of uniform
armour, as well as letters, a leave pass and even a soldier’s birth-certificate, all
part of a remarkable private collection of objects and papers picked up on the
battlefield on 19 June 1815.
Badges, insignia and the knitted woollen bonnet of a Scots infantryman. Part of a collection
of objects picked up on the battlefield in June 1815 and still in the possession of the family
which owned Hougoumont from 1816 to 2003.
There will also be an area devoted to the story of Breguet, whose customers
included both Wellington and Napoleon and several of Napoleon’s marshals.
In the great barn visitors will be overwhelmed by a multimedia evocation of
the battle-within-a-battle and its aftermath. Visitors will then be guided round
the site by a leaflet or by apps which will draw on contemporary accounts of
the battle and its aftermath.
The cost of the scenography is 1 million euros, entirely funded from the UK
government grant.
The Future
After 18 June 2015 we hope to start planning – and raising funds for – the
restoration of the landscape. This will involve replanting the wood through
which the French first attacked and of which only three giant sweet chestnuts
remain, recreating the laid hedges of beech and hawthorn which proved such a
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formidable barrier to both sides, and planting a new generation of hedgerow
trees. All this replanting will be guided by the findings of the landscape survey
we have commissioned. The result will be to make it easier for visitors to
understand the later phases of the battle.
Martin Drury
on behalf of the Project
Hougoumont UK Appeal
Committee
1st February 2015
Patrons: The Duke of Wellington OBE DL, Prince Blucher von Wahlstatt, Prince Charles
Napoleon
UK Appeal Committee: Alice Berkeley, David Colvin, Martin Drury, Lizzie Holmes, David
Martin, Pen Milburn, Alex Spofforth, Steve Stanton, Annie Tatham, Barry van Danzig,
Samantha Wyndham.
Project Hougoumont. UK Charity No: 1135611. Trustees: Alice Berkeley, David Martin, Barry
van Danzig.
Projet Hougoumont (Belgium): Count Georges Jacobs de Hagen, Justin Davies, Michael
Mitchell.