The fields, a few miles south of Brussels at the village of Mont St Jean on Sunday 18th June 1815, resounded to the clamour of war as Napoleon’s dreams of Empire were shattered by an Allied army of Anglo-Dutch, Hannoverian and Prussian troops commanded by the Duke of Wellington. Almost 220,000 men fought all day and into the evening over an area about two square miles and over 47,000 died.
Sir Walter Scott described them thus…
'Farewell, sad Field!
whose blighted face
Wears desolation's withering trace;
Long shall my memory retain
Thy shattered huts and trampled grain,
With every mark of martial wrong….

…Has not such havoc bought a name
Immortal in the rolls of fame?
Yes – Agincourt may be forgot,
And Cressy be an unknown spot,
And Blenheim's name be new;
But still in story and in song,
For many an age remembered long,
Shall live the towers of Hougomont
And Field of Waterloo!'