This incident took place during the final stages of the Battle of Waterloo, after the 52nd Light Infantry had routed the last advancing column of the French Imperial Guard and the pursuit of the French by Wellington’s army was in progress. *

*from an information plate next to the painting

This painting by South African-born artist, Jason Askew, has been commissioned by The Royal Green Jackets (Rifles) Museum to mark the Bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo.

It is 7.50 p.m. on Sunday, 18th June 1815. A column of French Imperial Guard has just been repulsed by the 1st Foot Guards of Major-General Maitland’s brigade (top left, and red uniforms, colours flying). The final column of advancing chasseurs (centre, middle ground) is about to be attacked in the flank by the 52nd Light Infantry of Major-General Adam’s brigade (bottom right).

Colonel Sir John Colborne, commanding the 52nd, who, on his own initiative, ordered his Regiment to move forward and attack the Imperial Guard in the flank, is shown on his horse with his sword raised (bottom right). Ensign William Leeke, aged 17, who survived and wrote a vivid account about the manoeuvre, ist to his left carrying the 52nd’s Regimental Colour. (Ensign Nettles carrying the King’s Colour was killed earlier in the day and the Colour is not recovered until the following day.)

The 2nd/95th Rifles (bottom left), commanded by Captain Logan, on foot carrying a sword, are providing fire support for the 52nd with their Baker rifles. The Imperial Guard, with an Eagle and Tricolour prominent in the centre of the painting, is facing outwards to oppose the 52nd. On the hill (top left)  the Duke of Wellington on horseback is surveying the scene, accompanied by Baron Tripp, 60th Regiment, aide-de-camp to HRH the Prince of Orange.

Within minutes the Imperial Guard is routed under the sudden impact of the 52nd’s musketry and a battalion charge, bayonets fixed. Wellington then orders his army to advance and the Allied victory at Waterloo soon follows.*

*Information next to the painting in The Royal Green Jackets Museum

The portable communion set seen [above]  was used by Reverend Lumley Green-Wilkinson to administer communion to the members of the 7th and 8th battalion, The King’s Royal Rifle Corps and the 7th and 8th Battalion, The Rifle Brigade, when he was Chaplain to the 41st Infantry Brigade in the 14th (Light) Division whilst serving in Ypres salient during 1915. This period included the German offensive at Hooge on 30/31 July when the brigade suffered over 1,000 casualties.*

*Information next to the communion set

After breakfast which was much quieter than the previous day, we walked through the Cathedral close towards Cheney Close so that we could show mum the church over the bridge. On our way we saw the Christmas market being set up in the Cathedral close but as we turned the corner we were dismayed to see that Cheyney Court was partially obscured by scaffolding. When we passed through the Priory Gate we were even more dismayed to find that The Church of St Swithun upon Kingsgate was covered by scaffolding and boarding because it was being re-roofed. I was hoping to show mum the church because she would have loved it, however it wasn’t meant to be. We continued on our way past the rare Victorian post box, which is just around the corner from the church, towards Peninsular Barracks.

After a steep walk we arrived at Peninsular Barracks to find noisy building works which detracted from the peaceful square. Our hopes up a cup of tea in the Cafe Peninsular were also dashed, we found that it was shut on Mondays! I had secretly been looking forward to lunch there too

We made our way to the Royal Green Jackets museum next door to the cafe which was our reason for visiting Peninsular Barracks in the first place. Mr C and I wanted to see the Waterloo Diorama that we had missed by just one day on our previous visit to Winchester. The Napoleonic display was well worth the wait with the diorama being the jewel in the crown. The son et lumiere display gave a great insight into the battle and how it played out. We found that other displays in the museum had changed too, adding interest from our previous visit.

We then made our way to the nearest teashop for a cup of tea before visiting the Great Hall. When we had finished the tour of the Great Hall it was time for lunch so we made our way to the Cathedral Rectory where I enjoyed a delicious mini quiche. Afterwards we enjoyed browsing around a second hand bookshop, a cookshop and indulging in some ‘Christmas’ purchases from the Cathedral shop. We then had some more refreshments in the Cathedral Rectory before returning to the hotel to chill out before dinner. Our timing was perfect, the heavens opened just after we arrived back at the hotel.

We dined in Rick Stein’s restaurant, which was easily the meal of the weekend. The food, service and ambience were excellent, a perfect dining experience.

After dinner we relocated to a bar that was ‘interesting’. The football was on and there were televisions squeezed into the most unexpected places so that there was no escape from the visual display. A couple arrived shortly after we did, they were quite vocal and mum remarked that it was like watching Coronation Street. We stayed for a short while before moving on to a more genteel location.

When we returned to the hotel mum went to bed but we weren’t quite ready for sleep so we decided to have a drink in the bar area. There were people in there but the lights had been turned off…

We were about to give up on the idea and return to our room when we saw the night porter and asked him if the bar was open. He said “yes I will serve you”. He accompanied us into the bar area and turned the lights back on before he served us. Eventually the bartender turned up and asked Mr C to sign the bill (which had already signed) because he was closing the till, by now it was 11pm. He was advised that this had already been done and he replied ‘no you haven’t’. We both chimed up at the same time ‘yes we have’. He looked at us and said ‘oh! did you do it with the night porter”? We said “yes”. He then marched off in the direction of the night porter and didn’t even come back to apologise.

We were all packed and ready to go before we went down for our last breakfast in the Courtyard Garden. During breakfast we realised that there had been a bit of a mix up over the number of nights that we were staying, our hosts were expecting us to stay another night. Before we set off on our travels I had thought we had booked the extra night but on reading the confirmation letter to see we had only booked four nights, so I cancelled my extra days leave.  I mentioned on several occasions to Mr C that perhaps we could book the extra night… But he said he needed to get back to work, he he had booked one less day than needed at the beginning of our holiday so that had to be sorted in favour of less days off at the end of our break.

Our hosts were sad to see us go and when I got home checked the booking acknowledgement letter I could see how the confusion had arisen and I regretted not noticing it before we went away.

After breakfast we loaded up the car with our luggage, paid our bill and chatted with our hosts before paying one last visit to Barter Books to see if we could locate the book on rock carvings that I had first seen when we arrived in Alnwick. After having a quick search for the book ourselves we took the details to the desk and a helpful young lady went into the back room to check the catalogue. The book was still listed and we were directed to the appropriate section where we found that the owner of the shop had followed us. He told me the author of the book and asked a lady to assist us. She found a version of the book within two minutes and went to check elsewhere if the other version of the book was still available. It was only the binding that was different but she thought the other book may have a better binding.  She couldn’t find the other copy but I didn’t mind, it was the content of the book that I was interested in. I thanked her for her help and went to purchase the elusive book.

After this brief diversion we headed to Ripon so that Mr C could explore the Royal Green Jackets museum. The museum was excellent although there was one off putting moment when we heard a building alarm going off and we didn’t know if we should evacuate the premises and the museum staff were unsure because the fire alarm panel wasn’t showing a problem. It turned out to be the lift alarm where two people were stuck in the lift. Eventually the museum staff were able to rescue the two people. We had been told on arrival that the lift was slow but that was taking it a bit far…

When we left the museum Mr C realised he had parked in the wrong zone so we decided not to leave our chances to fate and travelled on to Brough and a lovely tea shop situated next to the ruined castle there before continuing on our homeward journey.