That hole, just five centimetres in diameter, is what makes this otherwise plain slab quietly fascinating. A plain standing stone might be a boundary marker, a memorial, or the remnant of a larger monument, but a deliberate perforation near the crown suggests something more functional was once intended, or already in use.

The stone's long axis is aligned roughly north-northeast to south-southwest, and it is thought it may have served as a gate pier, one of a pair of upright stones through which a gate would have been hung or tied. In this type of arrangement, a rope, bar, or leather hinge could be threaded through the hole to secure a gate controlling the movement of livestock or people across a boundary. Gate piers of this kind, where stones are dressed or perforated to take a fastening, are relatively uncommon survivals, since the organic materials that made them work have long since disappeared, leaving only the stone element behind. The dimensions, narrow at just 0.1 metres thick but over a metre wide, suit this kind of structural role reasonably well.