Given the letters RU (Ruabon), it sounds like a parish or manor boundary stone,
although many (but not all) boundary stones have other letters on the reverse
which denote the parish on the other side of the boundary.
The other possibility is that it is a 'meer stone' used to mark a lead mining
claim - the ones I have seen look very like a boundary stone. In this case the
letters would be the initials of the miner or partnership. These were
erected in the Grassington (Yorks) mining field, although most have now been
robbed and I believe they were also common in the Derbyshire mining field.
Their use seems to have been part of local mining law where veins were let by
the meer (about 30 yards but very variable according to locality).
Richard Smith
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