Foot on the break. Gasp audibly. Furiously press with index finger to wind down the window. Crane neck for a better view. Initiate eulogising. Simultaneously wonder if you’re really seeing what you’re seeing. A sight even the high hedges of the Carmarthenshire countryside can’t obscure. Carreg Cennen Castle, rearing up from the hillside as if released from within it, like cooled lava, not a manmade fortress, still glorious in ruin, built deliberately to dominate the landscape.

Plugged into a nearly 300ft limestone crag, not clinging on like the plants growing on its sheer walls but positioned to take full advantage of the topography, the scale of its construction is best described by the fact it took 500 men four months to dismantle it during the Wars of the Roses. Despite the effort of those picks and crowbars, and 19th century attempts to partially reverse them, the castle has an aura of longevity seeping from its remaining walls, which are of dark local carboniferous limestone, rocks formed millions of years ago.

As a visitor you’re left to your own devices once beyond the ticket office, itself an unassuming hut perched inconspicuously on the hillside at the castle approach. When faced with an unattended, unlit, damp cave, sloping and slick underfoot, running through the hillside beneath the foundations this licence to explore is exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure. Back above ground, the towers, even in their crumbled state, and the evidence of additional storeys, even in their absence, is reassuring, though stalactites on the walls of the ‘King’s Chamber’ provide actively dripping reminders of natural forces working in tandem with the stone.

Castles have a curious way of both providing security and repelling advances, in short instilling respect, depending on whether you find yourself within or without the boundaries. Which is where terminology becomes so interesting. The inner and outer ‘wards’ of Carreg Cennen Castle are designed to protect those inside, and ‘ward off’ those who would seek to breach the walls. Safety and guardianship are at the heart of both perspectives. In castle life even attack is ultimately a form of defence.

The word ward is also associated with administrative subdivisions, hospitals and prisons, locks and keyholes and with those who work in roles associated with caretaking, caregiving or who are themselves being cared for. There is an act of keeping in, enclosure, at the philanthropic end a metaphorical hug, going on in all these iterations of a word of Germanic origin. But enter the Anglo Saxons and an entirely different slant emerges.

The suffix -ward is used to create words which denote direction, to or from a given point, but even some of these have taken on more layered meanings. A person can be described as ‘backward’ or ‘forward’ beyond their spatial behaviour, and neither adjective lends a particularly complimentary view. Trumping them both is ‘wayward’, a shortening of ‘awayward’ meaning simply to turn away, and in doing so, to be wilful, disobedient and unpredictable. Resistant, in fact to any form of guarding or custody, freedom at its logical and beautifully defiant extreme.

What room within a castle community, within the inner and outer wards, would there have been for wayward individuals? In a social set up where everyone has their role and place, the wanton and ungovernable would have rubbed vigorously against the grain. But just as the workings of a castle are known intimately only to its inhabitants and welcome guests, the mind holds places of refuge, sanctuaries breached only by permission of the owner. Even in the tightest external constraints, the soul can still roam internally at will.

There are no time limits at Carreg Cennen Castle, a modest entry fee, no officious warning signs and a pleasing lack of information overload. Interpretation and experience are up to the individual. A child can wield a toy sword and hide, ready to enact a mock ambush. Historians and geography enthusiasts may be prompted to dredge up fascinating facts. The whimsical can visualise castle life and superimpose holograms on the space, rebuilding the walls, may even hear echoes of the thumps and clangs of industrious activity. Metal and wood, fires and water, warded on all sides by stone.

'Upon my back, to defend my belly; upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy, to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty; and you, to defend all these; and at all these wards I lie at, at a thousand watches.' Troilus and Cressida, William Shakespeare