Every design for Voorburg

Voorburg is known as one of the oldest towns in the Netherlands, the place the Romans called Forum Hadriani, though day to day it feels like a green, settled neighbour of The Hague. It merged with Leidschendam and Stompwijk into Leidschendam-Voorburg and has grown right up against the city, yet it keeps its own old village core and its own pace. The Vliet runs along its edge, part of the canal the Roman general Corbulo had dug between the Rhine and the Meuse.

It is a town of country houses and the gardens they left behind. Constantijn Huygens built Hofwijck here, now a museum, and well-off families from the seat of government kept summer retreats close by; the Huijgenspark and Buitengoed Dorrepaal carry that calm into the present. An evening walk past them feels like slipping between centuries, from Roman bathhouses and shops to the quiet suburban streets of today.

Corbulo still stands in Voorburg, a reminder that this unassuming place was once a fully fledged Roman town with a wall and gates – a story worth wearing.