Stathel stone

This may just look like an ordinary stone but it gives me great joy!

I retrieved it and another one from the family farm just before the farm was sold last year. I can remember as a boy seeing a group of these, some of them still on their rectangular bases, like mushrooms in the old stack yard.
Over the years the sandstone bases must have been used for other purposes.

These stones are very heavy and in the old days they were used to keep the oat stacks off the ground keeping them dry and deterring vermin from climbing in. I suspect these stones date back to the 19th century and were probably used into the early part of the 20th century. I think in England they may be known as Staddle stones.