Wiktionary
n. (context historical English) A small block, often carved with steps, used for mounting or dismounting a horse at a pub, courthouse etc.
Wikipedia
A mounting block, horse block, or in Scots a loupin'-on-stane is an assistance for mounting and dismounting a horse or cart, especially for the young, elderly or infirm. They were especially useful for women riding sidesaddle, allowing a horse to be mounted without a loss of modesty. They were frequently located outside churches or kirks for the use of parishioners attending services, etc. In Yorkshire some were built at the top of steep lanes, where the rider would remount after leading his horse up the slope. Mounting blocks today are primarily used by modern equestrians who are a) beginners b) people who have difficulty mounting (either a tall horse, a short person, or someone with some mobility impairments) and c) people who feel that use of a mounting block reduces strain on the spine of the horse, particularly at the withers. Modern mounting blocks are usually made of wood or of molded plastic.
Usage examples of "mounting block".
Arriving safe at last in the courtyard, he had no attention for anything but the mounting block, the groom, and again getting off the damned horse alive.
At the mounting block before the dwelling was a carriage drawn by two matched grays.
Cerryl eased up next to the right rear wheel, listening as the coach door opened and a man stepped out onto the mounting block.
Pressed into the top of the stone mounting block were two prints, as if a huge hound had rested its forepaws there.
The hound had trotted up the street as far as the mounting block, then turned and gone back the way it had come.
One day the horse stopped suddenly in the yard and she fell off, catching her head on the mounting block, and croaked two days later.
Not giving herself time to have doubts, she gathered up Lassie's basket, clambered on to the mounting block and somehow scrambled astride the vast black back which was pitching like a top deck in a force ten gale.
She whinnied joyfully and thenstood perfectly still while Maria, slowly and fumblingly, because thiswas the first time that she had done it, saddled her, and adjusted bitand bridle, and then she ambled of her own accord out of the stable tothe mounting block beside the steps leading to the back door, and stoodstill for Maria to mount her.
He actually stood still long enough for Hugh to mount with the aid of two squires and a mounting block.
She descends onto a white marble mounting block and looks over a halfscore of wide white marble steps that climb to a columned entrance portico.