This trough quern was dug up in an old stackyard from the foundations of a shed in The Sliabh, Balephuil in 2010. It was broken when it was found. It was put as a coping stone in a drystone wall. It was made from a block of gneiss.
NL 97060 40793
Dimensions of stone: L50 x W50 x D24cm
Trough: L 40 x W 20 x D13 cm

It is prehistoric in date and was used for grinding grain.

See See Joanna Close-Brooks (1983) Proc Soc Antiq Scot, 113, pp. 282–289:
‘Not much can be said about early prehistoric querns in Scotland since so few are published. There is no well-defined typology; some flat querns can readily be classified as saddle querns, and some deep ones as trough querns, but others hover between the two extremes. One must assume that early Neolithic querns were flattish saddle querns, and that later on trough querns came into fashion. These apparently flourished in the Bronze Age especially in northern Scotland. There are now radiocarbon dates of 1564 be ± 120 (BM-441) and 1760 be ± 55 (GrN-6168) from carbonized barley associated with part of a trough quern in the wall of a house at Ness of Grating, Shetland (Calder 1956, 353; Barcham 1980). In the Iron Age flat saddle querns reappear. This change is demonstrated at Jarlshof (Hamilton 1957, 49, 50), and Clickhimin (Hamilton 1968, 30, 64, 78), though the exact date at which it happens is not altogether clear. The preponderance of flat saddle querns on Iron Age sites is also shown by old excavations such as Duntroon, Argyll (Caulfield 1978, pi 8a). There seems to be a general, though not exclusive, tendency for earlier saddle querns to be a shallow scoop with a rim round the grinding area on some or all sides (fig 1, 2; fig 2, 4), whereas Iron Age querns are almost flat and worn right out to all edges, as can be seen in the photograph of the Duntroon querns mentioned above. This is also true of the large collections of saddle querns recently excavated at Broxmouth, East Lothian, and at Douglas- muir, Angus. On this basis the quern from Kilcoy III (fig 3) is likely to be of Iron Age date. The geographical extent of trough querns is unclear at present. Curie (1934, 301) coined the term ‘trough quern’ for the deep querns he found at Jarlshof. Though this type of quern is best known in Shetland, the type is also common in northern mainland Scotland, and a number of trough querns from Ross-shire and Inverness-shire are noted below. Beyond this, trough querns may occur even in southern Scotland.’