Geographical features are influenced not only by the processes that form them, but also by the structures on or near them, and the activity, whether present-day or historical, in their environs. The presence of castle ruins gives the surrounding landscape a majesty it wouldn’t otherwise have. Yes, there is an implication of the supernatural here, but there is also an allocation of space to science and rationality.
First, just as the naked eye is blind to our microbiome, which extends beyond our epidermal boundary and surrounds us in an invisible cloud, perpetually raining bacteria, the eye wouldn’t see the microbial difference between the same plot of land that in one case had been trodden on centuries ago by knights on horseback and in another case had not. Even accepting the likelihood that the invisible impacts of historical activity wouldn’t be perceived so many years later by a “sixth sense” doesn’t negate that a difference would exist.
Second, where there exists visual evidence of historical activity, the reverence for the area may be sufficiently widespread as to restrict the type and extent of development permissible on the surrounding land. A former society’s likely unanticipated influence on the surrounding land, then, may be via decree of a different, temporally-separated society.
In light of the world’s rising population, it’s natural to wonder at the strength of such a decree against opposing forces. As the quantity of undeveloped land decreases, that which remains is defended evermore vehemently. There’s an irony in the diminishment of the same resource being lamented by both sides, one decrying that each year there is less land available to develop, the other distraught at the dwindling acreage left to defend from development. How close to castle ruins is a McDonald’s allowed to be? The acceptable distance is sure to shrink in proportion to the expansion of nearby cities and towns.