The geometric Late Renaissance gardens and ponds were constructed by 1636. around its inner banks
allées of trees isolated the pleasure grounds from the featureless agricultural landscape outside. Entry was across one of three bridges and through a formal woodland or
bocage, through which three drives were pierced: the central one led through a free-standing
Doric portal—guarded by sentry-boxes on this occasion—that was centred on a pedimented central gate in the mock-battlemented wall that enclosed the paved and cobbled forecourt. Right and left of this axial entrance, reserved during the treaty negotiations for the Mediator, were matching unemphasised entrances—perhaps opened in the walling for the occasion—destined, as the engraving's legend specifies, for the French representatives on the right and for those of the Allies on the left; clearly, this will have avoided tense protocol confrontations over which coach would enter the ''
cour d'honneur'' first. The north front of the
Huis with its paired corner
pavilions was separated from the forecourt by a low
balustraded terrace that created a privileged zone that protected the parade rooms from the immediate clatter of the courtyard and the inconvenient leavings of horses. For the duration of the negotiations, temporary brick walls had been erected to divide the entrance court from its flanking
parterre gardens; in ordinary times, openings in the terrace balustrade and a few steps gave direct access to these gardens, where fruit trees were
espaliered against the brick walls. The central axis continued through the central rooms of the
corps de logis and was extended as a wide gravelled walk down the axis of the pleasure grounds, which it divided symmetrically on either side; at the far end, the enclosing narrow band of trees drew back in a semi-circular
exedra that parted at the center to afford a view of the church steeple of
Delft on the horizon, centred on the garden axis. The grounds thus enclosed and divided featured a symmetrical suite of six parterres that were planted—rather than with the clipped patterns relieved with colored gravel of
André Le Nôtre's
Garden à la française manner—as formal
bosquets of trees laid out
quincunx-fashion and separated by wide gravelled walks. In the four outer corners of the grounds that were articulated by these shady sections were four rectangular ponds, the
vijvers of which two survive today. At the outside front corners were a pair of mock fortifications with corner bastions all in tightly-clipped evergreens, entered by arched doorways. Two separate gardens enclosed by brick walls extended east and west of the end pavilions. The eastward one was planted with evergreens surrounding a circular central rockwork fountain, from which is derived its name
De Rots, "The Rockery". The westward one was the
De Meloen Tuin, the melon garden. ==Owners and tenants==