The ancients didn't skimp - if the stone were excavated they would find it deeply rooted. A few weeks back I thought I had found an immense standing stone (HY444087) in an area cleared for new ?housing behind the Scapa Coastguard Station (county archaeologist said that if it had been uprooted the context was lost i.e. I'm not interested, go away [similarly she lost interest in an urgent look at the Via Mound cist because the revelation was fairly recent only in an archaeological sense, whereas to my way of thinking information on the contents is lost all the time now even though it is no longer precisely pristine] ). But upon examination it incorporated black flecks that showed it to be of 'modern' material and so quite unlike our stones in Orkney. However the rusty iron hinge still attached showed it to have been used as a gatepost. And this three or so metre long tapering stone looked, going by the hinge's position, to have been about 2/3 buried. So the Barnhouse Stone is perhaps only 'the tip of an iceberg'.