Waterloo Place

The Battle of Waterloo was fought on 18 June 1815, when a coalition of forces under the command of the Duke of Wellington defeated the French Emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte. Napoleon's defeat at the small village of Waterloo, on the outskirts of the Belgium capital of Brussels, brought an end to the long-running Napoleonic Wars.

The following month, after his abdication, Napoleon was taken prisoner and held aboard the HMS Bellerophon while a decision was made as to his fate. The vessel moored off the English port of Plymouth on 26 July 1815, much to the excitement of the local citizens. Eventually Napoleon was exiled to the island of St Helena, where he died in 1821.

Meanwhile, Plymouth wasted little time honouring both the victory in Belgium and the visit of Napoleon himself. Only five years after Napoleon's brief stay aboard the Bellerophon, the city had a Waterloo Street. The city now also boasts a Waterloo Close and Waterloo Court - something of a postie's nightmare.

Perhaps our link with Plymouth is why New Plymouth decided almost one hundred years ago to name a "paper road", Waterloo. For many years the paper road, located in the Maratahu Valley, was used as a pedestrian access way from Frankley Rd to Westown. The actual road was formed in the late 1960s.

As well as countless streets and place names, the celebrated battle has also left its mark on popular culture. It was the subject of a 1929 German movie directed by Karl Grune and another in 1970 starring Rod Steiger, Christopher Plummer and Orson Wells. Few will have escaped hearing the Abba song, Waterloo, winner of the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, while the Kinks' iconic song Waterloo Sunset references the London train station named after the battle.

This story was originally published in the Taranaki Daily News.