Waterloo Uncovered

Waterloo Uncovered The groundbreaking charity combining world-class archaeology with veteran care and recovery.

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏Veterans bring a wealth of knowledge about military equipment and uniforms, enabling us to accurately id...
12/06/2026

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏

Veterans bring a wealth of knowledge about military equipment and uniforms, enabling us to accurately identify archaeological finds both on-site and during our programmes. This incredible discovery was unearthed as part of a wider assemblage in a complex burial pit near the Allied field hospital at Mont-Saint-Jean in 2024. It is the metal tip from the cross-belt of a “cartouche” (cartridge pouch), as can be seen here on this modern example worn by a soldier of the Household Cavalry. It was identified on-site by long-standing Waterloo Uncovered volunteer and Welsh Guards veteran, Clive.

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏Identifying this would be a pipe dream! We find many clay pipe fragments on the Waterloo battlefield, ev...
05/06/2026

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏

Identifying this would be a pipe dream! We find many clay pipe fragments on the Waterloo battlefield, evidence of the popularity of smoking as the favoured pastime of Napoleonic soldiers. This decorated fragment of a stem was unearthed near the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean in 2019. Osteologists often discover clear circular holes or “notches” in the teeth of 19th-century skeletal remains, showing that pipe-smoking was a common practice that often began in childhood.

Great to see the In Pensioners on parade today for the Governor’s review. A wonderful opportunity for our Exhibition Pr...
02/06/2026

Great to see the In Pensioners on parade today for the Governor’s review. A wonderful opportunity for our Exhibition Programme beneficiaries to reconnect.

Great to see the In Pensioners on parade today for the Governor’s review. A wonderful opportunity for our Exhibition pr...
02/06/2026

Great to see the In Pensioners on parade today for the Governor’s review. A wonderful opportunity for our Exhibition programme beneficiaries to reconnect.

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏We have unearthed thousands of musket balls on the Waterloo battlefield. Musket balls are made of lead a...
29/05/2026

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏

We have unearthed thousands of musket balls on the Waterloo battlefield. Musket balls are made of lead and flatten on impact with hard surfaces. Due to the larger calibre of the Brown Bess musket (.75) versus the Charleville musket (.69), British musket balls are slightly bigger than French musket balls. Therefore, each musket ball offers small clues about whether it was fired, who fired it, and where on the battlefield it was fired from.

Did you know that flowers can reveal traces of war? On our recent Battlefields Uncovered programme, we were inspired by...
26/05/2026

Did you know that flowers can reveal traces of war?
On our recent Battlefields Uncovered programme, we were inspired by horse remains discovered during our archaeological digs at Mont-Saint-Jean. The veteran group benefited from a new seminar, kindly delivered by Garth Benneyworth of Sol Plaatje University, exploring the battle of Magersfontein in the Anglo-Boer War. Garth noted that the British horses were fed imported fodder from Argentina, containing cosmos seeds. Today, those flowers still bloom across the South African veld where the horses once travelled; a living reminder of war’s impact on the landscape and the vital role animals play in conflict. We all know the red remembrance poppies, but were purple poppies inspired by the cosmos flowers?

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏This swan-shaped s-clasp was likely used as a belt buckle or strap fitting, and was excavated at Hougoum...
22/05/2026

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏

This swan-shaped s-clasp was likely used as a belt buckle or strap fitting, and was excavated at Hougoumont in 2016. While they were more commonly worn during the post-medieval period (1550-1700), recent archaeological evidence suggests that similar serpentine variants were still used up until the mid-19th century. Could this have belonged to someone at Waterloo still wearing last-century fashion?

Did you know that one of the best ways to improve your wellbeing is by visiting heritage sites?Heritage is accessible, a...
20/05/2026

Did you know that one of the best ways to improve your wellbeing is by visiting heritage sites?

Heritage is accessible, and on our Battlefields Uncovered programme our veteran and serving military personnel beneficiaries have been to sites far and wide across the UK, and even in Canada. The benefits show for both the individual and the community - with wellbeing across the group improving considerably during the programme.

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏This small metal object, excavated on the rear slope in front of the Mont-Saint-Jean farm in 2019, is li...
15/05/2026

🪏 Finds Friday 🪏

This small metal object, excavated on the rear slope in front of the Mont-Saint-Jean farm in 2019, is likely a pipe tamper, used for packing down to***co in a clay pipe. Could it have been lost by an Allied or French soldier during the engagement of D’Erlon’s corps on Wellington’s left flank?

We had a great day of team planning in London yesterday as we looked forward to the year ahead and even more wellbeing p...
13/05/2026

We had a great day of team planning in London yesterday as we looked forward to the year ahead and even more wellbeing programmes for veterans and serving military personnel. Take a look at our website: https://www.waterloouncovered.com/programmes for more information.

We even managed to get out in the sunshine for lunch next to St Paul’s Cathedral.

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