Market Street Milestone

This milestone is on Market Street in Edenfield but why have all the words been removed?

In World War 2 when there was a real threat of invasion, signposts, milestones, railway station names etc were often removed and stored in order to make it difficult for the enemy to navigate across the country.  So why was this one defaced, rather then removed?

At the top of this stone  can be seen an OS benchmark which is at a known height above sea level and was used for surveying before the days of digitisation.  It was therefore important that the stone remained exactly in place.