England and other Germanic-speaking countries of Northern Europe formerly used various standardised "stones" for trade, with their values ranging from about 5 to 40 local pounds (2.3 to 18.1 kg) depending on the location and objects weighed.

With the advent of metrication, Europe's various "stones" were superseded by or adapted to the kilogram from the mid-19th century onward.

4. c. 74), which applied to all of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, consolidated the weights and measures legislation of several centuries into a single document.

[13] The Weights and Measures Act 1835 permitted using a stone of 14 pounds for trade[14] but other values remained in use.

used for beeswax, sugar, pepper, alum, cumin, almonds,[16] cinnamon, and nutmegs;[17] stones of 12 lb.

[16][17] In 1350 Edward III issued a new statute defining the stone weight, to be used for wool and "other Merchandizes", at 14 pounds,[nb 2] reaffirmed by Henry VII in 1495.

In 1661, the Royal Commission of Scotland recommended that the Troy stone be used as a standard of weight and that it be kept in the custody of the burgh of Lanark.

The Board of Trade, on behalf of the government, agreed to support a ten-year metrication programme.

In many sports in both the UK and Ireland, such as professional boxing, wrestling, and horse racing,[39] the stone is used to express body weights.

[41] Before the advent of metrication, units called "stone" (German: Stein; Dutch: steen; Polish: kamień) were used in many northwestern European countries.

During the early 19th century, states such as the Netherlands (including Belgium) and the South Western German states, which had redefined their system of measures using the kilogramme des Archives as a reference for weight (mass), also redefined their stone to align it with the kilogram.

This table shows a selection of stones from various northern European cities: In the Netherlands, where the metric system was adopted in 1817, the pond (pound) was set equal to half a kilogram, and the steen (stone), which had previously been 8 Amsterdam pond (3.953 kg), was redefined as being 3 kg.