Lion's Mound

The Lion's Mound is the only thing on the Waterloo battlefield that was built to be seen from far away. A grassy cone 43 metres high and about 169 metres across rises out of the flat Brabant farmland, and on top stands a cast-iron lion looking out over the fields where Napoleon's last battle was fought on 18 June 1815. From the road it looks almost artificial in its perfection, which it is.

King William I of the Netherlands ordered it in 1820 to mark the place where his son, the Prince of Orange, was wounded during the battle. It was raised between 1823 and 1826 from about 300,000 cubic metres of earth dug from the ridge along which Wellington's army had held its line, so the monument literally reshaped the battlefield it commemorates; Victor Hugo later put into Wellington's mouth the complaint that they had altered his field of battle, although there is no record that he said it. The lion itself, 4.45 metres tall and weighing 28 tonnes, was designed by the sculptor Jean-Louis Van Geel and cast in nine pieces at the Cockerill works in Liège. The story that it was melted down from French cannon left on the field is a legend.

The climb is 226 steps straight up the side of the mound, and the reward is the whole battlefield laid out below like a map — the farmland, the ridge and the slopes over which the armies fought. It is one of the few places where the geography of a famous battle can be read with the naked eye. At the foot of the mound stands a neoclassical rotunda of 1911–1912 holding a panorama painting of the battle by Louis Dumoulin, about 110 metres around and 12 metres high, with plaster figures and props in front of the canvas — one of the few original panoramas still shown in the building made for it. Both the rotunda and painting are protected monuments, and since 2015 the mound, the panorama and the Memorial 1815 museum form a single visit.

Getting there

The mound stands in open country in the municipality of Braine-l'Alleud, about 4 km from the town of Waterloo. The nearest railway station is Braine-l'Alleud, a few minutes away by the TEC bus line W or around half an hour on foot. Brussels South Charleroi Airport (CRL) is about 24 km away; Brussels, with its main airport and rail connections, is a short train ride north.