1) Originally a flat stone on which oatcakes or havercakes were baked.
1647 This morne I went to James Mitchell ... to get one of them come and hew mee a backstone, Thurlstone. Both stone and iron backstones are mentioned regularly in inventories: 1612 2 backstones, Eccleshill
1656 two Iron bakestones, North Bierley
1728 fire iron baxton, Easington. One of the places where suitable stone could be quarried was Quick, or Saddleworth, where a by-name serves as evidence of backstones being quarried in the fourteenth century: 1377 Robert Bakstoneman, Quick. In Songs of a Moorland Parish, Ammon Wrigley drew attention to a deed of 1555 which refers to two Backstone Pytts located in the aptly-named locality of Delph and in 1733 a Barnsley tanner recorded in his diary: October 8th Went to Delf ... it is there where all the havercake bakestones are got out of a quarry. A number of minor place-names occur in different parts of Yorkshire and they take the history of the word back to the twelfth century: 1154-8 Bacestaingrave, Marrick
1188-1208 Bakestaneforde, Worsall
1330 Bakestanclifrod, Yeadon.