July 2015 Fieldwork Report

An Archaeological Evaluation at Hougoumont 18th – 31st July 2015 To download the report click here. This report provides an overview of the results obtained from a 2-week intensive evaluation focused on the locality of Hougoumont Farm on the Waterloo battle- feld. This feldwork follows from an earlier shorter campaign conducted in April 2015. For further background to the project …

FINAL DAY

After two fantastic weeks of digging and discoveries, our excavation has come to an end. The team has been doing some great work and as Bobby said, “We worked hard, but laughed hard as well!” Everyone seems to have had quite a blast and it’s good to see such happy faces every day. Our team consisted of students, archeologists, veterans …

Day 11 UPDATE – The final trenches

Today the final trenches were opened. They were in the east end of the killing zone and ran from the base of the garden wall to the fence which marks the southern edge of the narrow strip, which the French had to cross in their attack on the wall. The purpose for these trenches was to allow metal detecting which …

Day 9 UPDATE – Mysteries and discoveries!

Phil’s team has been working very hard trying to find the original front wall of the building that stood against the north wall of the courtyard. They are digging a new trench at a location that should be in the right place according to the survey and it’s looking very promising! Sat’s team has opened up a new trench in …

Day 8 UPDATE – More info than ever before!

Stu and his crew have been very busy creating a data base. They collected all the data provided by the survey team and put it all into spatial coordinates. This is then used to orientate ourselves and get a very clear impression of exactly what was found and where it was located. By building up accurately plotted artefact scatters we …

Day 7 UPDATE – The battle of the Somme

Today, Waterloo Uncovered visited the site of the battle of the Somme and remembered those who fought and died on those fields 100 years ago. Euan, a student from the University of Glasgow, organized the day and took his team mates to places he was researching – the exact spots where members of his university had been killed on the …

Day 6 UPDATE – Achievements so far

We’re now at the half way mark and our teams have done exceptionally well. Everyone’s put in a lot of work and all of the trenches have offered up interesting archaeology. Before we left site for the weekend we had a trench tour so that everyone got to see what all the other teams have been up to (the site is …

Day 5 UPDATE – special guests and excellent archeology!

Today we had a surprise visit from the Duke of Wellington! He first visited to Hougoumont was with his grandfather 58 years ago, and ever since then he has been passionate about the battlefield his ancestor fought on. Our famous visitor was shown around the site, and even appeared in a live feed to a school in Kent, where Charlie …

Day 4 UPDATE – Uncovering trench 45

David Ulke, an ex-RAF nursing officer, is one of the team excavating trench 45 in the courtyard under the supervision of Phil Harding. The survival of the building remains in this trench is much better than expected considering that these were damaged and destroyed in the battle itself. By the end of the day a well-made drainage culvert, which ran …