READER Patrick Dwyer contacted me with a query.

"I wonder if I could draw on your knowledge of curious bygones? In Victoria Park beside the lake is a rectangular block of sandstone. The top is flat and there's a step at either end. On one side is an inscription but it's difficult to make out.

"There's a very similar one in Thatto heath Park but that is extremely weathered now. The photograph is the one in Thatto Heath. It is believed that the one in Victoria Park was originally a mounting block from the house in the park. However I don't think it's high enough to be a useful mounting block.

"Some years ago when I worked in Warrington I used to see three blocks identical to the Victoria Park one. One is at Lumb Brook on Chester Road beside the canal. Another is on the grass verge at the front of St Oswalds Church in Winwick.

"Both of those are still there. I can't recall where the third one was. The Warrington ones all bore the incised inscription 'Traveller's Rest'. Below that in smaller letters was the legend 'Rest to the body is sweet. Rest to the soul is sweeter'. I assume that is the inscription on the Victoria Park stone.

"I used to think they were simply a seat for weary travellers to sit on but there was a suggestion some years ago that they were designed to rest a coffin on on the way to the churchyard when funeral processions took place on foot.

"That would make sense of the inscription. I wonder if you have any knowledge of theses stones and could confirm or deny the coffin theory. I would like to be able to pass on the information to the Ranger service so they can prepare a definitive explanatory tablet to be displayed nearby.

"Incidentally I visited Victoria Park for the first time this week since the improvements and they've made a great job of it. It's just a shame that so little of the Folly is left compared to my memory of it in the fifties."

To be honest I don't know the history of the stones and there will be theories. Are there any similar stones in other parts of the borough? Does anyone have an answer to the riddle?