Lion's Mound 4.05

The Lion's Mound is a large conical artificial hill located in the municipality of Braine-l'Alleud (Dutch: Eigenbrakel), Belgium. King William I of the Netherlands ordered its construction in 1820, and it was completed in 1826. It commemorates the location on the battlefield of Waterloo where a musket ball hit the shoulder of William II of the Netherlands (the Prince of Orange) and knocked him from his horse during the battle. It is also a memorial of the Battle of Quatre Bras, which had been fought two days earlier, on 16 June 1815.The hill offers a vista of the battlefield, and is the anchor point of the associated museums and taverns in the surrounding Lion's Hamlet (le Hameau du Lion; Gehucht met de Leeuw). Visitors who pay a fee may climb up the Mound's 225 steps, which lead to the statue and its surrounding overlook (where there are maps documenting the battle, along with observation telescopes); the same fee also grants admission to see the painting Waterloo Panorama.DesignAt the behest of William I, the Royal Architect Charles Vander Straeten designed the monument. The engineer Jean-Baptiste Vifquain conceived of it as a symbol of the Allied victory rather than as glorifying any sole individual.HillEarth from many parts of the battlefield, including the fields between La Haye Sainte farm and the Duke of Wellington's sunken lane, is in the huge man-made hill.