The ghosts of Gwrych: the twisted history of I'm a Celeb's ruined Welsh castle

Few TV shows have remained untouched by the extraordinary events of 2020 – so far we’ve had a bubbled Bake Off and a socially distanced Strictly – and this year’s series of long-running reality survival contest I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! is no exception.

Forget mud slides, mosquito bites and hysteria-inducing heat, in 2020 the show has been forced to abandon its traditional setting deep in the rainforest of New South Wales, Australia and has instead relocated to a crumbling castle in a remote part of North Wales.

In all but name but the new setting could hardly be further from the tropical climate that has come to define the show. Gone are the witchetty grubs and dung heaps of yore – so what’s in store for this year’s nervous crop of C-listers instead?

When it comes to challenges, both physical and psychological, Gwrych Castle (the name comes from the medieval welsh word for the bristles on a boar’s back) has plenty to offer. Over the last century, the Grade One listed site has slowly declined into damp and decrepitude.

In 2018, the Gwrych Castle Preservation Trust managed to purchase it and rescue it from complete devastation, but its present state of disrepair will throw up plenty of unpleasant surprises for any contestants expecting roaring fires and four poster beds. There’s currently no electricity or running water (try that in a Welsh winter) and some parts are in a state that Mark Baker, founder and chair of the Trust, describes as “consolidated ruin.”

“Certain parts are open to the elements,” he tells me over the phone from Gwrych.

But the wet and the cold are not only the reasons this year’s contestants might find themselves with a bad case of the shivers. Gwrych Castle has long been a magnet for ghost stories.

Local legend maintains that it is haunted by the spirits of its former inhabitants. Most famous among them is Winifred Hesketh, Countess of Dundonald, who inherited Gwrych from her father in 1894. The roots of the legend lie in the Countess’s unhappy marriage: at 19, she was married off to Scottish aristocrat Douglas Cochrane, the 12th Earl of Dundonald, seven years her senior. The couple had widely divergent interest and, for the latter half of their marriage, led largely separate lives: the Earl was a courtier to both Edward VII and George V and spent most of his time on military duties, while the Countess remained in Wales, managing the several thousand-acre Gwrych estate and becoming an important patron of the Welsh arts and crafts movement.

She was a passionate believer in the castle’s cultural significance and in 1923, following a visit by the Prince of Wales, she began informal negotiations with the royal family for Gwrych to become their Welsh residence.

“She’d always had this great ambition for the castle to become a national institution,” says Baker.

But in 1924, the Countess suddenly died of heart failure. George V promptly U-turned and disclaimed his interest in the property, apparently discouraged by the earl, who emphasised the hefty cost of its upkeep. It passed instead to the Church in Wales but was soon bought back by the Earl, for £70,000, expressly against the wishes of his wife.

“He went out of his way to destroy his wife’s work and memory,” says Baker. This included forbidding their children from living in Gwrych and selling off her considerable collection of art, Welsh manuscripts and jewellery.

He was desperate to turn a profit from the castle: in 1927 he tried to sell off part of it as a quarry site – the proposal was abandoned after a national outcry – and later he tried to convert it into a hydro hotel. But none of his schemes succeeded.

“There were always things that got in the way. It was as if the Countess would step in. That was part of the mythology,” says Baker.

So the legacy of the Earl’s bitterness remains in the castle’s crumbling state – and in the local legends of the ghost of his irate wife, horrified at the fate of her family’s estate.

“She’s been seen by quite a lot of people over the years” says Baker.

The most famous sighting was by boxer Randolph Turpin, who trained at the castle in 1951. One sea-misty morning, while out for a run, he was a woman crying and went over to speak to her. She looked at him, then disappeared.

Other alleged ghouls-in-residence are rooted in the castle’s more ancient and specifically its Welsh history. A pair of iron age hill forts on either side of the castle were excavated in the 1960s, revealing a number of Celtic offerings including statuettes of dogs. On a path above the castle, which crosses the site of the hill forts, there have been “weird things where dogs have suddenly bolted, having seen things and jumped off the battlements” Baker tells me.

He’s quick to point out that the castle’s long history makes a certain number of ghost stories almost inevitable. “You’ve got 2,000 years of history. There’s been a lot of birth, marriage and death. It can go on and on and on” he says.

Many of these arose from the castle’s intersection with local history and geography. The Abergele rail disaster of 1868, which was, at the time, the worst rail disaster in British history – 33 people died – took place less than a mile away; while the treacherous coastline below the castle was the site of frequent shipwrecks.

In more direct links to the castle, the ghost of a groom killed in a riding accident in the 1870s is said to walk the grounds while local ghost hunter Gemma Williams also claims to have seen a blonde woman in a red Victorian-era dress while camping at the castle fifteen years ago.

Mo Farah's running legs may come in handy on a dark night in Gwrych. It sounds like we’re in for the spookiest series of I’m A Celeb yet.

Baker agrees. “It’s such an atmospheric place, particularly at night. It’s so evocative that it incites one’s senses. I think if you’ve got a great imagination, you’ll start to step into the past.”

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