There is, of course, no discrete beginning to my sense of landscape, history and atmosphere. It settled upon me, soft as fresh snow, from the earliest age.

But this instinct became honed and conscious, in a series of visits to special places in West Wales, when I was a student at Aberystwyth University.

I have spoken before of arriving by train, with other freshers, and falling in love with Cors Fochno – shining in old gold on that early October day – as the wheels rattled rhythmically on the rails and Borth appeared for the first time.

I can recall that vivid moment of rapturous ‘Aha!’ when the coach, taking us up the Penglais Hill, revealed hills and a vividly bruised sky and the utter loveliness of my first Welsh sunset.

But castles were an especial joy – and a source of rich imagination, or should that be memory? –…