Local sculptor creates Waterloo memorial plaque

Sculptor Sara Ingleby-Mackenzie has been commissioned to create a memorial plaque for the Chapel at Hougoumont to the soldiers who died nearby at the Battle of Waterloo.

Château d’Hougoumont (originally Goumont) is a large farmhouse situated at the bottom of an escarpment Waterloo, Belgium. The escarpment is where British and other allied forces faced Napoleon’s Army at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

The plaque is cast in bronze and all around the edge are 150 musket balls to represent each of the dead soldiers. Keeping it as authentic as possible Sara cast each one using genuine French musket balls from the time, which are smaller than those used by the English.

Sara says of her design “The outline of the soldier represents all the men, ranks and regiments with no specific identifying mark. For the pattination Verdigris was the obvious choice as I wanted to create a feeling of history and the battle and smoke. Verdigris is also the colour bronze would become after time and represents the bronze artefacts continually discovered at the site and surrounding area.”

150 guardsmen died on 18th June 1815 and were laid to rest in the Chapel in Hougoumont so this plaque is a fitting way to commemorate them.

Every infantryman in Wellington’s army would have had a basic knowledge of casting as they cast their own lead musket balls when ammunition was running low. Sara decided to sand cast her own plaque for two reasons; it’s a simple process and potentially one the soldiers could have used if they had cast the memorial plaque themselves.

Hougoumont sits on the right hand end of the battlefield of Waterloo and until 2008 had been in the same family before being sold to the Waterloo region in Belgium. Sara and her husband were invited out to Hougoumont for the recent unveiling of her plaque by Lt Colonel Sir Julian Paget, himself an expert and author on the Battle. The plaque will eventually sit on the wall to the right of the altar in the tiny Chapel as a lasting memorial to the 150 guardsmen.

Sara said, “It’s an incredible honour to produce a piece of work for such an historical site. Waterloo is possibly one of Britain’s most important and iconic battles.”

This isn’t the first sculpture with a military connection that Sara has designed; she was commissioned to sculpt a life size Second World War Royal Canadian Air Force Pilot for the National Memorial Arboretum in Tamworth, Staffordshire and the ‘Never Forget Memorial’ for the Royal British Legion.