Mont St Jean Farmhouse

[Captain Sibourne]

Dear All,

As part of our Waterloo project, we've been working on Mont St Jean farmhouse. It's a work in progress. My father built the farm and Liam is painting the figures. The farm was Allied 1st Corps Field Hospital and therefore the concentration point for Allied casualties. Deserters and French prisoners of war also headed north past its front gate.





I've acquired some close ups of the Siborne model which were very helpful in designing the building:





A couple of shots of our farm. The bails of hay are modern and don't fit:













More figures will be following from Liam next week and then I can start to assemble this section of the diorama.

[Bessiere]

Congrats to your dad for his fine work on the Mont st jean farm, he has an eagle eye for detail. Liam is a fabulous painter and his output is prodigious. You are most fortunate to have such dedicated and talented modelers on board. Well done James & father & Liam.
Cheers,
Bessiere

[Captain Sibourne]

Fortunate to have you as well Bessiere! Incidentally, why not the 's' on Bessieres? I have Captain Sibourne because it should be Siborne but I forgot the password for Siborne!!

[C M Dodson]

Excellent work and fabulous research as always Captain.

The farm has the ‘feel’ of the period and when populated will look splendid.

I really like the background information on your blogs latest update and am inspired with the tent scene. It’s good for either my current project or the next in my opinion.

As I have mentioned to the good surgeon, his dead do look a little healthy for their predicament, but I believe he is sorting this out. As stated, Newline ACW artillery men have hatless figures which can be chopped up for your casualties.

The Speira ACW amputation group would also be useful.

Great stuff as always .

Best wishes,

Chris

[Minuteman]

What a marvellous model! All praise to your Dad for this and, indeed, the other architectural models which form such a big part of the Waterloo in 20mm project.

As so many of us 'Waterloo modellers' will have done, I started out with battles fought around the venerable Airfix 'Waterloo Farmhouse' (and indeed I still have two of them, one built, one still in its box !). And now, we have the 'real thing' in 1/72.

Liam's casualties, surgeons and general gore must represent hours of dedicated work, and undoubtedly will form a point of particular focus in the diorama. Well done indeed.

[Bessiere]

My father would add an "s" when pronouncing the name though I was told his maternal grandparents name was Bessiere. Either way I suppose? I'm very glad to see you back at Benno's and doing a bangup job of updating your blog as well. It was a long of summer of anticipation. I suppose I should add we just had our 7th grandchild delivered on the 22nd.
Cheers,
Bessieres

[Bill Slavin]

Congratulations to your father's modelling job on the Mont St. Jean farmhouse. It looks fantastic! And to Liam as well on all those casualty figures. It will be great to see them in situ.
Regarding the hay, what will you do? I created a bunch of wheat stooks and hay piles from a worn out bamboo fibre welcome mat for my gaming table which seem to work for the period. https://tinywarsplayedindoors.blogspot.com/2015/07/quick-and-cheap-terrain-making-hay-or.html

[C M Dodson]

Horse hair or Scenic effects hay/straw cut ties and a dab of glue work really well.

Best wishes,

Chris

[C M Dodson]

Oh, I nearly forgot .

That Russian terrain looked very nice indeed Bill.

Best wishes,

Chris

[Captain Sibourne]

I've worked on the Mont St Jean model this weekend. It's still not finished - the road needs to be laid, and the courtyard base is too pale and syrupy. The stands of the figures need to be better concealed, but you get the general idea.

Despite these forthcoming improvements, I'm already pleased with the results. It's really the coming together of the work of two people who have never met (Liam and my father) but the results look ok and will be even better in due course. You can see more on my blog at http://generalpicton.blogspot.com


































More to follow!

[Captain Sibourne]

Now with the courtyard properly blended in:

[Bessiere]

Very nice James, looks fantastic. I've been ogling the French casualties and doctors over at Spiera; any chance you need more medical staff and Fr wounded?
Cheers,
Bessiere

[Captain Sibourne]

They do look great, don't they? I'm not going to buy any for Mont St Jean, being an allied facility but we are planning on making Rossomme which has never been built to my knowledge except by Siborne, so it will be a copy of his farm and will have French medical staff - Baron Larrey et al.

[Bessiere]

I meant for elsewhere on the battlefield of course. One thing that might be missing is stacked muskets anywhere. Just seems a few would be scattered about. Nice close ups, so much detail going on there.
Cheers,
Bessiere

Eta: No sooner did I make that comment than I spotted a single stand of muskets. I was looking against the wall.

[Michael Robert]

Hello Captain,
just want to say that I follow with lots of interest your progress. So many well known figures being adapted to such a gigantic diorama - at such high level of detail. Inspiring and impressive at once
Greetings
Michael

[Captain Sibourne]

Thanks Michael, much appreciated, it's a lot of work!

[Minuteman]

Fantastic modelling and composition of this important part of the (much) bigger diorama. Showing the necessarily bloody and somewhat gruesome side of warfare - concentrated as this was into a relatively compact Napoleonic battlefield - is an important feature of the overall story of what happened on that momentous day in June 1815. Well done to all involved!

[Captain Sibourne]

Many thanks all! Liam, who adapts and paints most of the figures for MSJ, feels it should be more crowded and gruesome, so stand by for more! He should know, as he's a retired UK NHS surgeon - I knew the NHS had its problems but amputated limbs in carts?!

[Bessiere]

We are talking about thousands of hands, feet, arm and legs being sawed off in a single day. If a cart were available they would remove them if not a large pile conveniently nearby the amputation tables would seem logical. Removing limbs from the scene wouldn't be a priority during that battle. Such considerations likely went out the window as needs dictated. Pure speculation on my part of course.
Cheers,
Bessiere

[Minuteman]

We are talking about thousands of hands, feet, arm and legs being sawed off in a single day. If a cart were available they would remove them if not a large pile conveniently nearby the amputation tables would seem logical. Removing limbs from the scene wouldn't be a priority during that battle. Such considerations likely went out the window as needs dictated. Pure speculation on my part of course.
Cheers,
Bessiere

It does raise a question about where these cart-loads of so many amputated limbs ended up? I'd assume in some sort of mass-grave on or near to the Waterloo site, and soon after the battle, since I can't see that (a) these bits of bodies would have been buried in any organised sense, as in some sort of burial service; and (b) I cannot see that they'd have any value otherwise??

Is this a macabre archaeological site yet to be uncovered? Indeed, something that the Waterloo Uncovered charity might yet come across?