28 Tons of Iron: The Sentinel of Waterloo
…and, some Trappist ale recommendations.
The Lion’s Mound
What you’re looking at is an artificial earthen mound topped by a lion statue on a pedestal. The Waterloo mound is essentially a giant viewpoint with a backstory. Construction began in 1823 and finished 1826, after King William I of the Netherlands ordered it (decision dates to 1820). It’s meant to commemorate the battle of Waterloo and the spot where the Dutch Prince of Orange was wounded during the fighting on 18 June 1815.
As a piece of visitor infrastructure, it’s simple and effective: you climb 226 steps, you get a commanding view of the battlefield. At the top you’ll find orientation aids that help you read the landscape and the troop movements. The lion is often described as “roaring toward France”, which is a nice bit of theatre, if perhaps not exactly subtle.
The mound is big enough that the numbers sound fake. It’s around 40 metres high and has a circumference around 520 metres. It’s less like a “hill” and more like someone dropped a neatly trimmed green volcano onto a farm landscape.
One of the strikings thing about the Waterloo monument is not what was built, but what was removed. The 40-meter conical mound is constructed from 300,000 cubic meters of earth scraped directly from the battlefield itself. Specifically, it leveled the “sunken lane” and the ridge that provided Wellington with his tactical advantage. When Wellington returned years later, he famously complained, “They have altered my field of battle!”
The “Iron Guard” of Liege
The lion itself is a 28-tonne metallurgical beast. It wasn’t carved; it was poured. It was cast in nine separate pieces at the John Cockerill foundries in Seraing (Liège). Cockerill was a British industrialist who brought the “architecture” of the English Industrial Revolution to Belgium. To see a lion of this scale — roughly 4.5 meters long and 4.5 meters high — cast in iron was a major accomplishment for the foundries of 1826.
- The “Trophies” Myth: A persistent local legend suggests the lion was cast from the melted-down brass of French cannons abandoned on the field. This isn’t correct. The statue is primary pig iron, but the myth serves a purpose: it ties the physical object directly to the debris of the event it commemorates.
The Internal Pillar
One fascinating part isn’t the lion you see, but the brick pillar you don’t.
Because an artificial hill made of 300,000 cubic meters of loose earth is essentially a shifting structure over decades, the engineers knew the lion would eventually sink into the mound as the soil settled. The solution was to build a massive, subterranean brick pedestal that rests on the original 1815 ground level. This pillar acts as a structural pile. The lion is literally “sitting” on a column that extends deep into the hill. When you stand at the base of the statue today, you aren’t standing on a pile of dirt; you are standing on the cap of a masonry skyscraper buried within the earth.
The View
If you climb the 226 steps to the top (a grueling climb that gives you a visceral sense of the mound’s scale), you are granted a “god’s eye view” of the battlefield.
From this height, the farmhouses of Hougoumont (see below) and La Haye Sainte look like architectural models. You can trace the “geometry of the defeat,” the way the French cavalry was funneled into killing zones.
Memorial Pairing: Trappist Ale:
Belgium is the high temple of the Authentic Trappist Product (ATP). To carry the ATP label, the beer must be brewed within the walls of a Cistercian monastery under the supervision of monks.
The Nearest Neighbors: While there isn’t a Trappist monastery directly in Waterloo, you are in the heart of the “Trappist Belt.” Two Abbeys:
- Chimay (Scourmont Abbey): South of Waterloo. Known for its scale and consistency. Their “Blue” (Grande Réserve) is a dark, malty structural masterpiece that evolves in the bottle.
- Rochefort (St. Remy Abbey): Further southeast. Their brewing is defined by their unique water chemistry—low in calcium but high in carbonates, which provides the distinctive “mouthfeel” of their 6, 8, and 10 ales.
Trappist brewing often utilizes high-gravity fermentation and “candy sugar,” which allows for a high ABV without a heavy, syrupy body.
Pairing: A Strong Pour
After descending those 226 steps, the physical toll makes its demands. Many visitors head to the Bivouac de l’Empereur nearby, but for the true experience, look for a bottle of Waterloo Récolte. It’s a top-fermented farm ale, hazy and unfiltered. It has a “structural” mouthfeel, yeasty, bready, and rustic.
Hougoumont:
In one afternoon this farmhouse became the most critical piece of “accidental” architecture in military history. Hougoumont speaks to defensive adaptation, how a domestic agricultural complex was rapidly retrofitted into an impenetrable fortress.
The Layout: Architecture as a Weapon
Hougoumont wasn’t designed for war; it was a typical “carré” (square) Brabant farm. It consisted of a main house, a chapel, a barn, and a gardener’s house, all arranged around a central courtyard and surrounded by a high brick perimeter wall and a dense wood to the south.
The Perimeter Wall: This was the farm’s most vital structural feature. The British Guards (the Coldstream and Scots Guards) hid behind it, and hacked loop-holes into the brickwork at chest height, allowing them to fire with near-total cover. To defend the top of the walls, soldiers built internal firing steps using farm equipment, benches, and crates. This created a multi-level defensive “section” that allowed for overlapping fields of fire.
The “Great Gate” Crisis
The most famous architectural moment of the battle occurred at the North Gate. French soldiers, led by a giant known as “Legros,” managed to smash through the wooden gates with an axe. For a few moments, the “enclosure” was breached. The British managed to force the gates shut again and barred them with massive timber beams. Of the roughly 30 to 40 Frenchmen who made it inside, only a young drummer boy was spared. The gate remained closed for the rest of the day, frustrating Napoleon’s attempts to divert Wellington’s center.
Materiality and Fire
The French, unable to take the farm by infantry assault, turned to howitzers. The wooden roofs of the barn and the main house were quickly ignited. By mid-afternoon, Hougoumont was a hollowed-out shell. Despite the fire consuming the timber frames and interiors, the brick and stone walls stayed upright. The soldiers continued to fight from within the smoking ruins.
The “Unfinished” Restoration
When you visit today, the restoration (completed for the bicentenary) is intentionally sparse. They haven’t rebuilt the “mediocre” domestic interiors. You can still see the bricked-up loopholes and the charred remains of the chapel where the fire miraculously stopped at the feet of a wooden crucifix.
Hougemont Pairing: Orval Trappist Ale
If you are auditing the “Spirits of the Site” after visiting Hougoumont, you must look for Orval. Orval is the outlier of the Trappist world. It uses Brettanomyces yeast, which gives it a “barnyard,” leathery, and dry profile. It is a rustic, “architectural” beer. Just as Hougoumont is a mix of refined chapel stone and rugged farm brick, Orval is a mix of clean fermentation and wild, “untamed” yeast. It tastes like the Belgian countryside—earthy, complex, and enduring.