Gwrych Castle Story

It was a stately home for more than 100 years, with its own stables, brewery, dairy, bakery, ice house and chapel. It was requisitioned during the Second World War as part of the Kindertransport, and was home to 200 Jewish refugee children. Later it became a theme park with a zoo and a small private railway.

It was a marker in the landscape, with its 18 stone turrets and towers rising up between the trees. I passed it every day on the way to and from school. Playing and exploring the ruins of the castle and its grounds — 250 acres of fields and forest, with peacocks and peahens — gave me a prism to see into the past.

I remember as a child visiting the old kitchens, empty room after empty room — there are 120 rooms, some with vestiges of the former inhabitants. I remember brilliant church-like stained glass. It was so evocative of a forgotten world, and eerily quiet. The caves on the site are where the fairy folk are believed to have lived in The Mabinogion. This is a place embedded in Welsh mythology.

That includes the ghosts and ghouls in residence — I once saw a ball of light on the marble staircase. It was hovering for about ten seconds and then just disappeared. This phenomenon is thought to be Winifred, the Countess of Dundonald. Some have also heard invisible horses going up the trackway.

Then, one day in the mid-1990s, I arrived and there were about 200 caravans there, and rubbish everywhere. It was a squat. Before long it was asset-stripped — the doors and windows disappeared. I saw works of art being burnt in a fire.  Seeing it in such a state had a profound, heart-wrenching impact on me. I remember the smell of the place. It was one of rot and decay.

Appalled, I wrote to the Prince of Wales and to the then prime minister, Tony Blair, highlighting the plight of the castle. Both responded, and Prince Charles has supported it ever since.

I have always viewed architecture as a work of art.  I wrote a 50,000-word book on it when I was 14 and went on to study it at Cardiff University. Marcus Binney [the former architecture correspondent of The Times] offered so much support and made me the youngest honorary lifelong member of Save, the conversation charity. It was Marcus who also inspired me to see if I could save Gwrych Castle.

I was 12. I was so young that I couldn’t be a trustee, so I was made secretary, and as soon as I was 18, I became a trustee, and I have been one ever since.

We had to raise £1 million in six weeks to buy a derelict property with no electricity or running water — an incredibly exhausting prospect.

Those six weeks might have been the only time in my life when I didn’t visit the castle. I didn’t want to go in and see it, just in case the deal fell apart, and I would never be able to save it. However, the National Heritage Memorial Fund was so helpful and stepped in and fast-tracked the deal. I was in Cardiff when I got the call and was told I had to get to a solicitor’s office in St Asaph by 5pm. I arrived with a nail-biting 15 minutes to spare.

But they persevered, and within 24 hours of the border to Australia shutting [for the past 16 years the show has been set in the Australian jungle] we signed a secret deal. Gwrych Castle was to be the base for the 2020 series of I’m a Celebrity — an immense opportunity, which came together very quickly.

Following on from hosting I’m A Celebrity we’ve welcomed hundreds of thousands of visitors to the castle, along with weddings, private events and high-profile photoshoots from the likes of Louis Vuitton for their Men’s fall campaign in 2021. The funds from all of these avenues have enabled us to carry out urgent repairs.