But despite its status as one of Britain’s most important battle sites, one that, according to the man nicknamed the Iron Duke, “turned the outcome of Waterloo”, Hougoumont has been left to rot. Following the death of the cattle farmer who owned it a few years ago, the site has become derelict. The masonry and roof tiles of its outbuildings are crumbling. Trees spring out at improbable angles from locally quarried limestone walls. A 15th-century crucifix that adorned a chapel in the centre of the site and miraculously survived the blaze that gutted the château during the battle, has been looted....