Your problem Kammer, is that you're always right.

The question is, did anyone think anything of it before old Walter Scott brought it to people's attention? He was certainly aware of all sorts of folklore, he was always incorporating it into his books. So I'm sure it had a reputation before he turned up?? Or was it part of the tourist trade for the Spa, and entirely spurious? But if it's called the popping stone, and if that's (as Kentigern points out) from the OE poppel - pebblestone, maybe that suggests an earlier recognition??

Oh I dunno.

P'raps should be assigned as a rock outcrop or sommat.

no, im just pleased to see you.

Sorry

I've not seen it in the real, but it's got to be a natural feature.

In the absence of any prehistoric finds (flint scatters etc?) in the immediate vicinity, the only two things it has going for it that would warrant accusations of prehistoric significance would be it's proximity to Gilsland Spa (in a Goffikesque holy-by-association kinda thing), and it's position at what is roughly a prehistoric boundary between the west and east sides of the north Pennines/Cheviots.

Having said that, I'd argue for it having a place on tma, 'cos I've got a thing for the possible significance natural features may have had to our ancestors.

According to EH even a natural stone can be classified as a standing stone if the 'hand' of man has erected and/or moved it