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This Charles Trudeau Diorama recreates what is considered the turning point in the Battle
of Waterloo, when the gates at Hougoumont were closed against the French.
The date was June 18, 1815 and Wellington later acknowledged that upon this incident "rested
the outcome of the day".
The French troops fought desperately to get inside the courtyard of the chateau to add their
weight to the struggle already raging inside.
Major James Macdonell and three other Coldstreamers fought and hacked their way to the gate.
It was a desperately close thing, but they succeeded in closing the gate and dropping an enormous
wooden bar across it.
At the end of that day, less than 2,000 men in all had taken the sting out of the attack
and kept more than 10,000 Frenchmen occupied in the attack which Napoleon had only meant to be a diversion.
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