Panorama of the Battle of Waterloo by Ionic pilasters, and crowned with parapet with a frieze of palmettes. The entrance porch has two pairs of Tuscan columns supporting a triangular pediment. The rotunda houses an oil-on-canvas painting completed by French artist Louis Dumoulin in 1912, with 14 canvas panels sewn together to create a cylinder approximately in circumference and high. It is lit from above by a ring of glazing around the edge of the conical roof and is viewed from a high platform at the centre of the rotunda. The painting depicts several different episodes from the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, concentrating on charges
Battle of Waterloo back, the British line was dispersing, and at two o'clock in the afternoon Napoleon was winning the Battle of Waterloo. Reports from Baron von Muffling, the Prussian liaison officer attached to Wellington's army, relate that: "After 3 o'clock the Duke's situation became critical, unless the succour of the Prussian army arrived soon". At this crucial juncture, Uxbridge ordered his two brigades of British heavy cavalry—formed unseen behind the ridge—to charge in support of the hard-pressed infantry. The 1st Brigade, known as the Household Brigade, commanded by Major-General Lord Edward Somerset, consisted of guards regiments: the 1st and 2nd Life Guards,