File:18 June 1815 – Victory at Waterloo – Lady Athlone Column.jpg

English: The Lady Athlone Column is a monument ordered by Lady Athlone (Anna Elisabeth Christina van Tuyll van Serooskerken (1745–1819), spouse of the Fifth Earl of Athlone) to celebrate the safe return home of her three sons after the June 18, 1815 Victory at Waterloo of the Allied Forces over the French dictator Napoleone Buonaparte (1769-1821) – and the return to peace of Europe after 20 years of wars and destructions and lootings all over the continent.

The monument, designed in Tuscan Order for its sobriety, was erected near the top of the Amerongse Berg, a 69 m high forested hill south of Utrecht (NL) then belonging to the House of Athlone established in the Castle of Amerongen. A plaque explained, as it still does, the meaning of the memorial :
►File:18_June_1815_–_Victory_at_Waterloo_–_Lady_Athlone_Column_–_Plaque_1815.jpg

Some thirty years later, the monument had to be restored, as an additional plaque from 1843 recalls :
►File:18_June_1815_–_Victory_at_Waterloo_–_Lady_Athlone_Column_–_Plaque_1846.jpg

In the 1930s, the forest was sold for financial reasons. The new owner (or the forester) had the monument removed and buried. But thanks to an overnight action by the fire brigade in 1963, the column was retrieved and re-erected, that time nearer to the southern foot of the hill – where it stands today, crowned with a stone bullet.

Upon the re-erection of the Lady Athlone Column, the heirs of Graaf Godard van Aldenburg-Bentinck (1857-1940) handed the monument over to the municipality of Amerongen. A third plaque alludes to these latest events :
►File:18_June_1815_–_Victory_at_Waterloo_–_Lady_Athlone_Column_–_Plaque_1963.jpg