They have spread the tale across the three Wellington-related properties they own, using the arch to cover the battle, its causes and effects, Apsley House to examine the duke’s life as a social animal and celebrity in London, and Walmer Castle in Kent to assess the huge impact on the nation of his death.
The arch exhibition starts with a bang: a whole wall is filled by a reproduction of Lady Butler’s painting of Waterloo, all horses’ hooves and flaring nostrils, smoking muskets and charging men. Yet on a pillar nearby a small and strangely modern-looking painting shows a Prussian attack in the ruins of a village, with soldiers dying under shattered walls and a sniper firing from an upstairs room.
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Waterloo was the last of four days of fighting in what is now Belgium, the culmination of a campaign to destroy Napoleon once and for all after the shock and humiliation of his escape from captivity on Elba and reappearance in France.
A tabletop audio-visual display shows a countdown to victory for Wellington’s forces, and the decisive role played by Marshal Blücher and the Prussians. Display cases contain, of course, a pair of Wellington boots, as shapeless and ungainly as their rubber descendants, the result of several attempts to adapt the cavalry boot to repel sabre cuts and spent musket balls.
Wellington Arch
There is his gilt-handled curved sabre, his miniature campaign writing case of waterproof oilcloth and several dispatches pencilled on vellum in large, confident handwriting. And from the top of the arch you can survey No 1 London across three lanes of traffic.
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When Wellington bought Apsley House from his elder brother in 1817, it was a relatively small town house, designed by Robert Adam, sitting at the west end of a grand run of Piccadilly houses on the corner with Old Park Lane. The duke commissioned Benjamin Dean Wyatt to wrap a fashionable new Regency house around it, doubling its size, partly because he entertained in grand style.
The entrance hall has been cleared of ticketing paraphernalia, so you enter as the duke’s guests would have done, threading your way towards the elegantly curling staircase, at the bottom of which is an immense statue of Napoleon in the nude, sculpted by Canova and given to the duke as a gift he couldn’t really refuse.
The real gem is the Waterloo Gallery upstairs, recarpeted with a specially commissioned Axminster rug, on which stands a dining table more than 80ft long, built around two torchères too large to move, and sufficient to hold not only the 90 or so regimental guests the duke invited to his famous Waterloo Banquet on the anniversary of the battle each year, but an immense silver-gilt table centrepiece.
“The banquet was like a premiere,” explained Josephine Oxley, the keeper of the Wellington Collection. “Journalists were invited so they could report on the decorations and it was reported in The Times the day after.” Just outside the door is William Salter’s painting of the 1836 banquet, with the duke addressing 92 guests, all listed in a panel below with numbered, silhouetted figures.
The Battle of Waterloo, painted in 1843 by Sir William Allan
New multimedia guides focus on the collection’s highlights, a children’s tour and an art lover’s tour of the extraordinary paintings in the house, including the captured Spanish Royal Collection found in the baggage train of Napoleon’s fleeing brother Joseph, with works by Velásquez, Titian, Raphael, Rubens and Correggio.
It’s also worth visiting the Museum Room, which hasn’t been touched for the refurbishment, to see some of the gifts showered on our greatest military hero. At last, two centuries after the battle that made him famous, we have absolutely no excuse for not knowing a thing about him.
On the Wellington trail
The Wellington Arch (020 7930 2726; english-heritage.org.uk) hosts the exhibition “Waterloo 1815 – The Battle for Peace” from today, 10am to 6pm. Gift Aid admission £4.30 adults, £3.90 concessions, £2.60 children 5-15 and £11.20 families (two adults and up to three children.)
Apsley House (020 7499 5676; english-heritage.org.uk) opens on Saturday, April 18, 11am to 5pm. Gift Aid admission £9.20 adults, £8.30 concessions, £5.50 children 5-15 and £23.90 families. Look out for lectures relating to Wellington and Waterloo.
Combined admission to both properties: £11 adults, £9.90 concessions, £6.60 children 5-15 and £28.60 families.
The National Portrait Gallery exhibition “Wellington: Triumphs, Politics and Passions” runs until June 7 (020 7306 0055; npg.org.uk). Open daily 10am to 6pm (9pm on Thursdays and Fridays). Admission free.
”Waterloo at Windsor 1815-2015” is a themed trail through the state apartments, including the Waterloo Chamber, all this year at Windsor Castle (020 7766 7304; royalcollection.org.uk). Admission £18.50 adults, £16.75 concessions, £11 under-17s and disabled, under-5s free.
The Fan Museum (thefanmuseum.org.uk) in Greenwich is until May 10 displaying fans and fan leaves related to battles in the run-up to Waterloo. Open Tuesday to Saturday 11am to 5pm and Sundays 12pm to 5pm. Admission £4 adults and £3 concessions and children.
To find out about Wellington events in the UK for the Waterloo anniversary year, see Waterloo 200 (nam.ac.uk/waterloo200).
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