AHEAD of The Rifles ‘Freedom Parade’ through Wellington town centre next week local museum society member Chris Penney travelled to Kent to find out more about the links between Wellington and the Duke of Wellington and twin town of Torres Vedras, in Portugal.

Mr Penney visited the Royal Engineers Museum, in Gillingham, near Chatham.

It contains the ‘Waterloo Map’, purportedly a land survey carried out by the Duke's engineering staff before bringing the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte to battle at Waterloo in modern-day Belgium on June 18, 1815.

The map provided Wellington with an overview of the ground on which he might have to fight Napoleon in an era before observation balloons appeared on the battlefield.

The ‘Waterloo Map’ in The Royal Engineers Museum.
The ‘Waterloo Map’ in The Royal Engineers Museum. ( )

It allowed him to select the most advantageous topography for his favoured tactic of using the reverse slope to conceal units from the enemy.

The military museum also details the construction of the impregnable ‘Lines of Torres Vedras’, fortifications which were untaken over 10 months from October, 1809, to defend Portugal’s capital city Lisbon from French attack.

Initiated by the Duke in great secrecy, Royal Engineers and Royal Military Artificers supervised thousands of Portuguese to help build the ‘Lines’ around natural landscape features.

Eventually, more than 180 redoubts were constructed overlooking the roads through the hills north of Lisbon to cover possible French lines of advance.

The fortified defensive works eventually convinced the invading French army they were impassable and so Lisbon was saved from attack.

June 16, 2023, marks the 650th anniversary of treaty ties between the UK and Portugal, the oldest military alliance in the world.

The Peninsula War was depicted in the popular television period drama Sharpe, which featured actor Sean Bean and followed a troop of riflemen marching with Wellington through Spain.

France was defeated in the Iberian Peninsula in 1814 but Wellington was forced to confront Napoleon at Waterloo the following year.

Mr Penney said: “Admiral Nelson ripped up the Navy’s rule book at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the Duke of Wellington did much the same on land during the 1809-1814 Peninsula War fought throughout Portugal and Spain.

The Torres Vedras twinning scroll which specifically mentions the Duke of Wellington.
The Torres Vedras twinning scroll which specifically mentions the Duke of Wellington. ( )

“The Duke’s previous experience of campaigning in India had taught him that his army's logistical support chain and the use of topography were vital for victory.

“His army marched some 6,000 miles during those five years and was involved in more than 20 battles and engineering sieges, a considerable feat of arms for its era.

“Interestingly, Wellington appears to have built the Torres Vedras fortifications without the knowledge of the Government in London – he just did it.

“Over 100 forts that his engineers constructed in Portugal are still visible today and the Friends of the Lines of Torres Vedras, of which I am a member, has been formed in the UK to promote their future preservation.”

More information about the Duke of Wellington’s riflemen and the Battle of Waterloo can be found by visiting the town council’s Pop-up Shop, in Fore Street, from Monday (June 12) until Saturday (June 17), which will be hosting a display of artefacts loaned from The Rifles Museum in Winchester, Hampshire.

The Rifles will march through Wellington on June 17 as part of the town council granting the regiment the ‘Freedom of Wellington’.