Who Owns Traitors Castle?

The castle in The Traitors is Ardross Castle in Ross-shire, in the Scottish Highlands. It is privately owned — not by the BBC, which rents it for filming, and not by any heritage body. It has been in the McTaggart family since 1983, and the estate business is run through Ardross Castle Enterprises Limited (SC083489), incorporated that same year. Verified 6 September 2026.

Who owns Traitors Castle?

Ardross Castle sits near Alness, north of Inverness. It is a private house and a working estate that hires itself out as a wedding and events venue, and it has been the location for every series of The Traitors in the UK.

The BBC does not own it. Television productions almost always licence a location for a period rather than buy it, and a filming contract creates no interest in the property at all — a distinction worth making because a house becoming famous on television leads a lot of people to assume the broadcaster acquired it.

The estate has been held by the McTaggart family since 1983.

Registered owner or holding entity

Two different records answer two different questions here, and confusing them is the commonest mistake in property research.

Companies House shows who controls the estate business. ARDROSS CASTLE ENTERPRISES LIMITED (SC083489) was incorporated in Scotland on 14 June 1983, is registered at Ardross Castle Estate, and files under mixed farming. Its people with significant control are:

• Mr Donald Emmanuel Mctaggart — recorded as having significant influence or control, notified 25 January 2022
• Mr Loukas Tsarmaklis — significant influence or control, notified 31 December 2016

Two further entries have ceased: Mrs Julie Mctaggart, who held more than 25% but not more than 50% of shares and votes until 25 January 2022, and Mrs Evie Mctaggart, on the same basis until 17 March 2025.

The Land Register of Scotland shows who holds title to the land and buildings. That is a separate record, and this page does not claim to have read it.

How the property is held

The important caveat: a company registered at an address is not proof that the company owns it. Estates are commonly structured with the land held personally, or by a family trust, or by a different company from the one that trades on it, with the operating company occupying under a lease.

Ardross Castle Enterprises Limited is a farming and estate business at the castle. Whether the title to the castle itself sits in that company, in family hands, or in a trust is a question only the Land Register can answer, and the two records can easily give different names.

This is the property equivalent of the distinction drawn throughout this site between a brand owner and an operating company. The company you can see is rarely the whole answer.

Ownership history

Ardross has changed hands several times, and its owners are a fair sample of who has owned Highland estates over two centuries.

• The estate was acquired by the Dukes of Sutherland in the late eighteenth century, with a hunting lodge built on the land.
• In 1845 the 2nd Duke sold it to Alexander Matheson, of the trading house that became Jardine Matheson, for a reported £90,000 with some 60,000 acres. The fortune behind the purchase came from the China trade, including opium — a provenance the castle’s current publicity does not hide.
• The estate was broken up and sold in 1937, with the castle and a much smaller landholding passing to new owners who lived there until 1983.
• The McTaggart family bought it in 1983 and have restored the castle and gardens since.

The 1937 break-up matters for anyone researching it: the Ardross estate of the nineteenth century and the Ardross Castle property of today are not the same thing, and searching for the historic estate will return land that has had different owners for nearly ninety years.

How to verify the ownership

Scotland has its own system, and searching the English register will get you nowhere. Title is held by Registers of Scotland, across the modern Land Register and the older General Register of Sasines, which is still being migrated. Older estates are more likely to appear in the Sasine register, and some Scottish land remains unregistered.

Ordering the title sheet for a property gives the registered proprietor, the extent of the land and any securities over it. That is the authoritative answer to who owns the castle, and it costs a small fee.

Companies House is the right place for the second half of the question — who controls the business — and free. Using both is the only way to get a complete picture.

Sources and record limitations

The company number, incorporation date, registered office and all PSC entries with their dates are from the Companies House register and can be checked directly.

The ownership history and the family’s purchase in 1983 are from published accounts of the castle rather than from title records. This page has not inspected the Land Register title sheet, so the identity of the registered proprietor is not established here — for that, order the title from Registers of Scotland. PSC entries describe control of a company, not ownership of land, and Companies House does not verify most filed information.