the 17th-century Dutch palace that rivals Versailles

I’m standing in the entrance to a rather elegant study. It’s a corner room – quite small but with a fine chandelier, a high ceiling and deep red silk lining the walls. It’s simply furnished with a couple of chairs and a desk which folds down from a big square cabinet. The sun is pouring in, and outside I can see a huge garden terrace. 

Bounded by brick walls raised on high banks, there are avenues of oak and hornbeam, interspersed with fountains, gravel paths and a network of tiny canals. 

And at the heart of it all is a carpet of intricate, immaculately-cut box-hedge parterres, planted with tulips, pansies, bluebells and fritillaries.

For all the world, it feels as though I am in France, in some fine chateau overlooking gardens designed to emulate those in Versailles. 

But I am not. I am in Holland. 

This is a palace built by a Dutchman and this room was the stage for a critical moment in British history. It is where the meetings were held and the letters were written to arrange for William III and his wife Mary to claim the crown in London. 

The Palace of Het Loo, which has just reopened to the public after a €171m restoration programme, is in Apeldoorn, slap bang in the centre of the Netherlands. 

Until 1684, it was a relatively modest hunting lodge – a favourite retreat for William of Orange. But after he became Stadtholder – the head of the Dutch state – his ambition caught fire and he began laying plans for an opulent red-brick palace in the flat wooded landscape where he loved to chase boar and deer.

There is no direct evidence that William wanted to emulate the gardens at Versailles. But it is hard to ignore the comparisons. 

A few hundred miles south, Louis XIV – William’s great military rival – was in the throes of building surely the most extravagant pleasure palace ever conceived. 

William didn’t have Louis’ resources, but like the French king, he understood the importance of using architecture to demonstrate political power – and he recruited some of Louis’ exiled Huguenot architects and designers to help.

Four years later, when he and Mary became King and Queen of England and Scotland in 1688, his ambition only increased.

New plans were drawn up to add extra wings to the palace and expand the gardens. William also had a new dining room built, so that he could eat “in public” – another trope borrowed from the grandeur of the court of Louis XIV. The extensions were completed in 1693 and Het Loo remained William’s favourite holiday retreat even after he moved to London.

What we see today – at least in the gardens – is as much a re-creation as a restoration, but it is based on detailed documents and drawings. And there are still living links to the 17th century. 

Remarkably, the oldest of the historic collection of citrus trees which are grown in containers, kept under glass in winter and wheeled into position among the parterres in summer, dates back to the 1690s when they were first laid out. Several others are more than 250 years old.

Inside the palace, the restoration divides the interiors into two. One set of apartments recreates the glory days of the late 17th century when William and Mary were in residence. 

The other retains the furnishings and trappings of the early years of the 20th century, when Queen Wilhelmina (1880-1962), the great grandmother of the present king, held court here. A new exhibition space under the main court adds a contemporary turn.

But visiting Het Loo, which was given to the state by the Dutch royal family in the 1970 and opened as a museum in 1984, does not just give an insight into Holland’s royal heritage. It is an impressive reminder of the power and status of the Netherlands at the end of the 17th century. 

This was the Golden Age of Dutch trading, cultural and military might. At the time, the Dutch – not the British – ruled the waves. 

In 1667, so dominant were the Dutch warships and so enfeebled was the Royal Navy, that the Dutch fleet was able to sail into the Thames estuary, capture the town of Sheerness, and surge on up the Medway past Chatham. 

In one raid, they destroyed or captured 14 warships and – extraordinarily – managed to tow away the Navy’s flagship, HMS Royal Charles. It was a moment of triumph for the Netherlands and national embarrassment for Britain. 

But by the time William and Mary came to the throne, the worst of the tensions were over. Indeed, For the next 14 years, William was head of state of both Holland and Britain. It was, I suppose, an early form of a political union in Europe.

And the influence of William and Mary’s Dutch experiment goes deeper than we realise. The joint monarchs didn’t much like London, but once they had assumed the throne, they set about emulating their achievements at Het Loo with even more spectacular redbrick building projects. 

With Sir Christopher Wren at their disposal, they set about building two new palaces. One was attached to the Tudor buildings at Hampton Court. There are some curious Dutch details. 

The same ornate door locks commissioned for Het Loo are found in Hampton, for example. Meanwhile, they also acquired and transformed the Earl of Nottingham’s mansion in west London. It became the new Kensington Palace – now home to the current heir to the throne. From William of Orange to William of Wales.

How to visit Het Loo

The palace, on the outskirts of Apeldoorn, near Arnhem, reopened last year after restoration, and a spectacular new exhibition space, constructed under the main entrance court, was inaugurated on April 21, 2023. 

There is an excellent new restaurant and – over in the stables – a courtyard cafe. 

To see the gardens at their best, come in June – once the citrus trees are out of winter storage and the floral displays are at their peak – or September. 

The palace is open Tuesday-Sunday, 10am-5pm, and from 1pm-5pm on Mondays (except during school and public holidays when it opens all day Monday. Admission €19.50.

There are hourly trains to Apeldoorn (the journey takes about an hour) from Amsterdam Schiphol Airport.

The best place to stay is the Bilderberg Hotel der Keizerskroon, which is right next to the palace and its gardens. Double rooms from €129.

Have you visited Het Loo? Share your experiences in the comments section below

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