Inside the Celebrity Traitors castle: A wedding venue once owned by an opium trader

Ardross Castle is available to hire for corporate and private events

The Traitors is about to air the grand finale of its first-ever celebrity edition – and a whole host of famous faces have been playing in the show’s castle.

The A-list edition of the BBC’s hit reality show sees contestants trick and deceive each other for the chance to win their share of up to £100,000 for their chosen charity.

“This game doesn’t care who you are,” declared presenter Claudia Winkleman at the start of the new celebrity series, striding across the gloomy Great Hall of Ardross Castle, a 19th-century house and estate north of Inverness in the Scottish Highlands.

“In here, your ­glamorous lives count for nothing,” she told celebrities including Paloma Faith, Stephen Fry, Jonathan Ross and Alan Carr.

Ardross Castle is used in both the UK version of the show and the US adaptation hosted by Scottish actor Alan Cumming.

The day’s missions take place on site, while the discussions, action and banishments are filmed among the castle’s lavish interiors.

Ardross Castle estate was purchased by the 1st Duke of Sutherland in the late 1700s, where he built a hunting lodge.

‘The Traitors' is filmed at Ardross Castle (BBC)

The castle as we recognise it now began to take shape once the estate was sold to Sir Alexander Matheson, an MP and opium trader, in 1845 for £90,000.

Aiming to attract tenants to agricultural tenancies, he began developing the land and enlisted the architect Alexander Ross to design the castle building in the Gothic Scottish Baronial style.

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Ross added around 30 rooms to the original mansion for £7,000, along with the lawns, pond and fountain.

Ardross Castle passed between owners in the 19th and 20th centuries, and was broken up and sold in 1937. It was purchased by the current owners, the McTaggart family, in 1983, when they began renovating the property, and added new trees.

Today, the space is used as a wedding and conference venue for corporate and private events, and as a film and TV set.

The setting of BBC game show ‘The Traitors’ (BBC)

The Times reports that prices to hire the castle for a wedding for up to 130 people over two nights begin at £45,000.

However, while the action on The Traitors takes place overnight at the castle, the rooms of Ardross Castle are not available to let individually. During filming, the Traitors and Faithfuls actually stay at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel near to Inverness’s airport.

A total of 19 celebrities were competing in the celebrity edition originally, with just five finalists remaining: comedian Alan Carr, singer/songwriter Cat Burns, historian David Olusoga and actor Nick Mohammed.

The Celebrity Traitors concludes on Thursday 6 November.