Just before we went away, I turned off our internal stopcock. Coming back and trying to turn it on again, it is VERY VERY hard to turn.  As in, it hurts my hand.  On further investigation, it would appear that although I turned it off, internally it didn't (if that makes sense) as mains water is still flowing quite happily.  (Yes, I should have checked it was off before I left  )

Is it something internally that might be fixable as I have no room to fit a second stopcock above or below this one.  Nor any leeway of movement in the pipework to take this faulty one out.

Our external mains stopcock is about a mile away across the fields..

But the pipes insert into the stopcock ends and the pipes are fixed with no vertical movement.  If the connection was like a ch pump and you simply slid it into place then ......