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Hougoumont - Work in Progress

Posted by Captain Sibourne on 04 Oct 2019, 15:12

Dear Iain,

Thanks for you email, which is quite long and if you don't mind me saying at times a little baffling. I'll take each point in turn:

1. This is not the formal garden, but the small kitchen garden in front of the Gardener's House. The formal garden will look like this:

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2. I agree that the main vegetable garden was to the west of the complex (which I am yet to build), but I disagree that the killing zone was a vegetable garden.
3. The whole farm was not surrounded by a single hedge - given the tracks emanating from the north and south gates that could not make sense.
4. You mention a 'drawing' and a 'He' without being clear who you are talking about - are you referring to Adkin or to Siborne? Adkin is a secondary source; I set greater store by Siborne Ferraris and the Cadastral map
5. My tracks are correctly positioned as you kindly acknowledge in your second message.
6. You indicate a desire for smaller figures - this is a 20mm forum. This figures are on platforms and are not the same height as the wall; as your second message also acknowledges the wall is therefore the correct height.
7. The Nassauers are ready and waiting - see earlier photo on this forum.
8. I'm preparing the haystacks.
9. I'm a trustee of Waterloo Uncovered so have access to the same material as you do.
10. Relax and enjoy - life is too short to get worked up about a model.
Captain Sibourne  United Kingdom
 
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Posted by Beano Boy on 05 Oct 2019, 10:53

i made simple to do matchstick platforms with a paper top. It was to make it more presentable to the cameras eye.It was not to make it historically correct. i just wanted soldiers able to be seen shooting from the walls. Purely a playful hobby time display. BB

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This was interesting and helpful to me,but a very flat blueprint of a page. BB
Beano Boy  England
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Posted by Beano Boy on 05 Oct 2019, 14:13

https://www.military-history.org/tag/hougoumont

In the Link above a little help.
French Howitzer Incendiary ...... :coffee: animal bladders filled with oil or fat. BB
Beano Boy  England
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Posted by Iain on 05 Oct 2019, 18:24

Good evening Captain…, and thank you BB for that image. That makes things easier !

I’m treading lightly here as I’m not a ‘traditional’ model maker and I don’t want my remarks to negatively influence anyone’s work. (my models being in general 10mm high) And as BB said, I suppose the underlying philosophy for all members here differs from one person to another. So please don’t take my comments to heart; I’m only transmitting what I’ve learned over the years, plus a lifetime of Scots Guards Waterloo lamp-swinging.

Next week I’ll experiment with BB’s site concerning images ! If I manage to master it, I’ll post my updated version of the Adkin’s sketch.
“Secondary” or not…, it’s much more accurate than Siborne. (Siborne didn’t have satellite radar)
If you take a photocopy of Adkin’s sketch, then use Photoshop (or the equivalent) and place it over a Google Earth Map, you’ll find it fits perfectly. Then, superimpose the radar images, and it suddenly confirms Adkin’s kitchen gardens and even provides, for example, the western kitchen garden’s divide and the flood to the north. (long-gone, well before Siborne’s model; due to the farm changing from apples to cows)
As for the exterior hedgerow…, you are quite correct ! In fact, there were four openings !

Let’s put ourselves on Jérôme’s charger and we’ll all look through his telescope. (lol…, we have a northerly wind behind us according to Wellington; I mention that for your smoke)
As we look left, we see the distant poplar trees, (‘light green,’ each side the Chemin du Goumont) as the lane moves north towards the Nivelles Road. On the other side of that road is Braine L’Alleud. (in those days, unlike today, that track did not veer right around the field where the ponds were)

As we scan right from the light-green leaves, the western kitchen garden’s ‘hawthorn-green’ hedgerow, (about 50 yards from the north gate) starts its southerly move down to the first SW opening. This is the track leaving the southern apple orchard. We continue to scan right and once again, we see the second opening leaving the SE corner of the southern paddock, leading to La Belle Alliance. (‘behind us to the right’) No proof; however, it is said that this gate/opening had a small roadside chapel.
The hedge then moved north, up the eastern side of the two paddocks and the great orchard. Once again, halfway up, we have the third opening, where the southern lane moves east and out onto the rye fields on the right. It was on this corner that the French Pioneers started to uproot the hedgerow to gain access to the orchard.

Please also note that this southern lane (dividing the farm in two) had a northern-side hedge:
Important: As seen in Adkin’s image, and confirmed by radar, this hedge made up part of the great orchard’s southern hedgerow. (with a barricaded gate by the Grenadier Guards on the evening of 17th) IN ADDITION, this great orchard’s southern hedge was slightly further south than the formal garden wall. Because of it, the space between the western bound hedge and the garden wall; this space became the southern kitchen garden. And as it was open on its western end, it automatically joined up with the killing zone.
Lol…, of course, Van Cutsem could also have planted cabbages in front of his offices, but as Madame Dumonceau was a bit of a snob and relished her husband’s Flemish flower garden, I doubt if her gent friends and neighbours would have appreciated a vegetable patch. However, she just might have accepted strawberries !
In the meantime…, I have an ice-house and a bandstand there ! Typical for the snobs in the region; however, radar images tend to put it on the left of the flower beds.

Anyway, getting back to the main hedgerow; it then moved up towards the sunken lane ! At this point, turning left according to Craan, the hedgerow was not part of the sunken lane, it was a continuation of the same exterior hedge, bordering both the northern sides of the great orchard and the orchard strip.
As seen in Craan’s map, there’s no wooded area to the north of the lane like today, nor is there a northerly hedge…, the lane’s edge and stream gave directly onto the ridge. (the one that Matthew Clay fell into at 19h30 on the evening of the 17th)
Suddenly, this orchard hedge then stops, when the sunken lane does a 90° turn north towards Braine L’Alleud. And there, as you say, we have a fourth ‘gap.’ (having done a complete circle of the farm, the ‘gap’ is between the sunken lane and the northern tip of the western kitchen garden) One ‘single’ hedge !
However, I’m convinced (and I have the proof) that the three ponds on the northern pasture (right over the Waterloo Uncovered trench where Phil Harding told me he found a ton of plastic…, totally normal) the area there was flooded; and because of it, there was no access through this ‘gap’ for Jérôme. (infantry and especially cavalry would have kept well clear of it)
This was surely the reason why Jérôme did a right flanking attack on the farm…, despite putting himself in full view of more than half the Allied artillery. But that’s another story !

Must run ! I’m at Plancenoit for the time being. (my daughter’s house) Must fly.

Once again…, great work !
Kind ReGuards…, Iain.
Iain  Belgium
 
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Posted by Beano Boy on 05 Oct 2019, 22:35

Image



A few helpful tips added Captain.
This is my 19 year old scratch-built haystack, and the paper made hay-cart ideally sets the scale for the camera eye. A ladder resting against it also does similar. Plumbers Hemp stuck onto several washing-up sponges that have been stuck together to form the required shape. One needs to cut sections of hemp and comb them out using a dinner fork, then glue them into place. Each layer stuck on from the bottom up, overlaps by half the previous one.

Lots of Norfolk wagons were painted blue
so i copied both that design and color. :coffee: BB
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Posted by Captain Sibourne on 06 Oct 2019, 12:30

Dear Iain and BB, many thanks for all this, very useful! My challenge is how to show a burnt haystack!
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Posted by Beano Boy on 07 Oct 2019, 01:23

A big black spot on the ground where it stood might well do. BB
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Posted by Captain Sibourne on 07 Oct 2019, 08:26

Image

And here is an experimental haystack, not yet attached or set alight.
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Posted by Susofrick on 07 Oct 2019, 09:24

Seeing your work is a almost life-long dream coming to life!
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Susofrick  Sweden
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Posted by Iain on 07 Oct 2019, 15:09

I don’t want to go into detail about the 36 Courts Martial and its relation to the wind, just to mention that early afternoon, Wellington wrote a note on a piece of goatskin telling Macdonnell that the haystack was the source of the fire in the farm. Ridiculous of course, however, what he is actually telling us here is the direction of the wind.
So as BB proposed (lol) a black patch would be enough. However, if there must be a smoke trail…, it should be in a northerly direction.

Regards…, Iain.

PS Using logic… I’ve always wondered where exactly that stack would have been on the pasture land ? Putting my feet in the shoes of the farmhands, I’d put it near the track to make it easier to transfer the hay to the cart. Guesswork of course !
However, being there, it would correspond with Matthew Clays’ remarks concerning his firing at the skirmishers on the other side of the exterior hedge.
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Posted by Captain Sibourne on 11 Oct 2019, 19:00

Dear All, just to show that this is a bigger model than just the gardener's house, here is an update.
More on my website at: https://generalpicton.blogspot.com/2019 ... turea.html

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Loads more to do!
Captain Sibourne  United Kingdom
 
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Posted by Beano Boy on 11 Oct 2019, 23:44

The complex of buildings are very burnt down and rather cool. :thumbup:
i also greatly admire your trees and their bases. :thumbup:

May you always enjoy your work in progress
however much there seems 2 U, you have to do. BB
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Posted by Graeme on 12 Oct 2019, 13:09

Wonderful piece of modelling. your buildings look fantastic and with so many figures to fight over them this will be a magnificent display. :thumbup:
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Graeme  Australia
 
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Posted by Iain on 12 Oct 2019, 15:10

Hi there… Great work !

Thought you might appreciate this download. This is a friend of mine Alasdair White. (you obviously know him)

Extremely interesting !
https://www.academia.edu/30974285/Of_He ... _FHEA_FINS
Iain  Belgium
 
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Posted by Captain Sibourne on 12 Oct 2019, 15:40

Hi Iain, many thanks, yes this is a very useful article and one I've used a lot for this project.
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Posted by C M Dodson on 12 Oct 2019, 17:06

Hello Captain.

A mountain of work as usual.

Keep up the good work.

Best wishes,

Chris
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Posted by Captain Sibourne on 12 Oct 2019, 21:14

A couple of updates:

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Captain Sibourne  United Kingdom
 
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Posted by Rich W on 14 Oct 2019, 21:55

You bloody mad man-I love it! When's the open house invitation for us all to visit?! Seriously great effort. Now if only I could encourage to take this scale of excellence and turn it to the SYW/AWI/Colonial conflict...
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Posted by Captain Sibourne on 15 Oct 2019, 04:28

Thanks Rich, my wife definitely thinks I'm mad but is only grateful that I confine myself to the Napoleonic Wars - SYW/AWI would be grounds for divorce!
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Posted by Egbert on 15 Oct 2019, 07:21

That's how I always imagined hougoumont...
Fantastic reproduction of the building and the landscape.
Keep it up ... I'm really looking forward to the continuation.
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Egbert  Germany
 
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