Lion's Mound
war memorial to the Battle of Waterloo in Braine-l'Alleud, Wallonia, Belgium
The Lion's Mound (French: Butte du Lion, lit. "Lion's Hillock/Knoll"; Dutch: Leeuw van Waterloo, lit. "Lion of Waterloo") is a large conical artificial hill in the municipality of Braine-l'Alleud, Walloon Brabant, Belgium. King William I of the Netherlands ordered its construction in 1820, and it was completed in 1826. It commemorates the spot on the battlefield of Waterloo where the king's elder son, Prince William of Orange, is presumed to have been wounded on 18 June 1815, as well as the Battle of Quatre Bras, which had been fought two days earlier.
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 (French: Hameau du Lion; Dutch: Gehucht met de Leeuw). Visitors who pay a fee may climb up the mound's 226 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.
History
Design and construction
The Lion's Mound was designed by the royal architect Charles Vander Straeten, at the behest of King William I of the Netherlands, who wished to commemorate the location on the battlefield of Waterloo where a musket ball hit the shoulder of his elder son, King William II of the Netherlands (then Prince of Orange), and knocked him from his horse during the battle, on 18 June 1815. It is also a memorial of the Battle of Quatre Bras, which had been fought two days earlier, on 16 June 1815. The engineer Jean-Baptiste Vifquain conceived of it as a symbol of the Allied victory rather than as glorifying any sole individual.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q31985. Authority coordinates are 50.678, 4.405. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1820, 1826 and 1815.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lion's Mound” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.