Quern Stone

This is the upper half of a rotary quern stone or hand mill.  Grain would be poured into the central hole and then the upper stone would be rotated by way of a wooden handle (in the other hole) on top of a flat lower stone in order to grind the grain down to produce flour.   Stones like this were used from the earliest times in Scotland right up to and past the medieval period.  However they are often found broken as by law during the middle ages in Scotland, people had to use the Lords mills to grind flour so that the Lord could take a proportion of it for his grain barns.  Quern stones were seen therefore as a way of avoiding paying this tax and were broken by the Lords men if found.