With our dig well underway, we began to search for the remains of the lost chapel of Hougoumont farm in what used to be a dense woodland. Though no element of the chapel remains on the surface, it is marked on a 1777 map of Hougoumont farm.
Join Vicki, alongside University College Roosevelt students Lisa and Etienne, to learn more about the lost and remaining chapels on the Battlefield.
Meet the team
Vasyl is a 28-year old veteran from Odessa in Ukraine. His military education began at the age of 15. He then attended a Military Law Academy and served for a year as a lawyer in a military prosecution office. Although Vasyl did not fight on the front lines, he highlights the importance of the work of military personnel behind the scenes, in addition to the bravery of those on active duty, which includes his older brother and friends.
In 2019, he came to Belgium in search of work. Vasyl later met volunteers from Promote Ukraine at a protest against the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and soon became an aid worker and board director for the Brussels-based charity. Vasyl is responsible for purchasing and delivering equipment to support the war effort in his native Ukraine, to support units like his brother’s.
After spending two weeks with Waterloo Uncovered, digging and serving as a translator for fellow Ukrainian veteran Oleksii,
“In the future, we will have a huge challenge with bringing our servicemen back them to ordinary life. Now [in Ukraine] we have 1.2 million servicemen, half of which have participated in action in a war zone. They will definitely need some kind of rehabilitation after that, not only physically but also mentally. Projects like [Waterloo Uncovered] show exactly how this can work; how we can help the people who help us now. it’s our civic duty to care about the people who protect us.
Day One In Pictures
Today, the team began testing the equipment for our series of live-streamed virtual tours of Hougoumont Farm, which will kick off tomorrow! Elsewhere, in the fields surrounding Hougoumont farm, veteran Jo discovered an artefact of war – but not the Battle of Waterloo! He unearthed a .50 calibre bullet from WWII, reminding us that even though we might focus our attention on the Battle of Waterloo, the site of Hougoumont was occupied for centuries both before and after the Battle.
At the quarry trench, Australian, Ukrainian, British, Dutch and Belgian veterans worked side by side as the trench was deepened to find the battle layer – which so far seems to be much deeper than expected!
