Is the castle in “The Traitors” haunted and can you stay in it?

The castle in The Traitors has seen dozens of murders during the two seasons of both the U.K. and U.S. versions of the show. (Australia, Canada, and New Zealand also have versions, but in different settings, which we’ll briefly explore in a bit.) Luckily none have been real murders, but it did get me wondering about the Scottish castle it’s set in.

In case you haven’t watched, I’ll briefly touch on what The Traitors is all about. But it’s the castle I’m most interested in. What’s its story? The Traitors‘ murders aside, does it harbor any real-life intrigues or dark history? And besides being a contestant on the show, is it possible to visit it?

The Premise of The Traitors

At its heart, The Traitors is a murder mystery reality show competition. A host welcomes between 20-24 contestants who try to complete missions, which, if successful, adds to the jackpot they can win if they make it to the end.

The catch is that the host turns some into Traitors. Their job is to pick off the Faithfuls. But the Faithtfuls must try to root out the traitors because if any are left at the end, the traitor(s) win the jackpot, and the Faithfuls get nothing.

Scottish actor Alan Cummings hosts the U.S. version. BBC presenter Claudia Winkleman hosts the U.K. version. Australian actor Rodger Corser hosts The Traitors Australia. Radio personality and news presenter Paul Henry hosts New Zealand’s version.

Season 2 for both the U.S. and U.K. versions of The Traitors premiered earlier this year. All episodes are now available to stream on Peacock. So is season 2 of The Traitors Australia and season 1 of the New Zealand version. (Or at least nine of what looks to be ten of its episodes, the last of which may drop on the streamer after this article posts.)

There’s also a Canadian version, but it’s not on Peacock. Yet. (I’m hoping that changes. I like seeing the interpersonal nuances between nationalities. In the first seasons of the U.S., U.K., and Australian versions, the Americans were by far the most conniving, and the Brits the most civil. How will the notoriously nice Canadians handle the game’s psychological twists and turns? Will they maintain their trademark pleasantness, or will they crack?)

Castle Ardross a.k.a. The Traitors Castle

Both the U.S. and U.K. versions of The Traitors share the same setting: Ardross Castle in Scotland. According to House and Garden, the 19th-century castle is about 30 minutes from Inverness. (Which is right in Loch Ness Monster territory.)

So as far as castles go, it’s not all that old, which I wondered about. Some parts of it seem very modern, which I was sure was attributed to remodeling. It’s definitely undergone some of that.

In the 1700s, the castle started out as more of a hunting lodge than a regal stronghold, but its first owner, the Duke of Sutherland, had a royal connection. The second duke sold Ardross in 1845 to Sir Alexander Matheson, a British China merchant. That’s who really made it look like a castle. Specifically, “in the Scots Baronial style.” In addition to adding hundreds of more acres of land, he also added 30 more rooms to the building. Was he who also put in secret passages and hidden rooms? (Some of which the contestants on The Traitors employ in their schemes.)

I don’t know, but the grounds are as big as they look, comprising “100 acres of parkland on the banks of the River Alness.” It’s currently owned by the McTaggart family, who bought a scaled-down but still sizable amount of the estate in 1983. (In 1937, the estate was somewhat divvied up, with the Mardon family buying the castle, 80 acres of land as Lealty Farm.)

Even though Highland Scotland alludes to the castle’s ” dark history filled with tales of betrayal, murder, and deception,” it doesn’t give specifics on the “enigmatic” treacheries rumored to have taken place there. And as far as I could tell, there are no ghost stories associated with Ardross Castle either.

If, like me, you were hoping it was someplace to visit on your next trip to Scotland, it’s not. It’s not open to the public for tours or overnight stays. You can rent it for events or weddings, though. Or, like The Traitors does, for filming.

The Mystery of the Bedroom Scenes

House and Garden also revealed that The Traitors deceives the viewers in a stellar example of TV trickery. Even though the cast traverses the stairway every night, presumably to head to bed, they don’t sleep in the castle. They’re whisked away to a nearby hotel. House and Garden reported it was an Inverness airport hotel.

But each episode also shows the cast settling into their bedrooms for the night. Are those scenes filmed in the castle? (It would explain why all the women are still wearing full faces of makeup with perfectly coifed heads.) But the rooms seem too fabulous, glamorous, and well-appointed to be just a regular hotel by an airport. Unless my inner snob is showing and airport hotels in Scotland are a lot nicer than the ones I’m familiar with here in the States.

Where the Other Versions Are Set

The Traitors Australia is not filmed in a castle in the Scottish Highlands but rather in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales. The remote Robertson Hotel, built in the 1920s, provides an equally atmospheric setting that evokes the proper eerieness when necessary. It’s also surrounded by lush scenery amidst a scenic backdrop.

Although it may not have quite the lengthy history of Ardross Castle, the hotel has an interesting one nonetheless. Under the hotel’s History section on its website, it explains its connection to healing. Not just for people, which it did when many veterans enjoyed R&R there following World War II, but also for animals. In the 1980s, the hotel’s owners made it a wildlife haven of sorts, where they helped injured marsupials.

I didn’t find any juicy ghost stories about the hotel, but speaking of animals, the movie Babe inspired the hotel to open a petting zoo. It was filmed on the hotel’s grounds, and they say that “you can glimpse the Hotel in the background in quite a few scenes.”

The isolated Woodhouse Mountain Lodge, a swank hotel in Warkworth, serves as The Traitors New Zealand’s home base. Surrounded by plenty of countryside, its well-appointed interiors and grounds are the most modern of The Traitors locations yet.

I didn’t dig up any dark history or ghost stories associated with the Woodhouse Mountain Lodge, either. It appears in its case, as well as the Robertson Hotel and Ardross Castle, that the manufactured treachery on The Traitors provides all the tantalizing terror.

Check-In

Have you watched any of the various versions of The Traitors?