If you have hundreds of millions in the bank, you have to find ways of spending them. JK Rowling is spending some of hers on creating a formal Renaissance garden on the estate just west of Edinburgh she bought for £2m in 2009. Most attention has focused on a lodge she plans to build, which some have likened to Hagrid's stone hut in Rowling's Harry Potter books. But more intriguing is one of the existing features – the Cramond Whipping Stone. The stone – a tall post with the remnants of its original chains – dates back to the 16th or 17th century, and would have been used to punish petty thieves and religious backsliders. What will she use it for? To punish prying journalists who show excessive interest in her domestic arrangements perhaps?
