When the capstone was lifted, what emerged was a short cist, a type of prehistoric box-grave formed from carefully fitted stone slabs, measuring internally just over sixty centimetres long and forty-five centimetres wide. It was barely large enough to hold what it contained: the cremated remains of a single adult, mixed with flecks of charcoal, gathered towards the northern end of the grave.

The construction of the cist, described in detail by Prendergast in 1962, reveals a degree of deliberate craft that the modest dimensions might not suggest. The capstone and several of the structural slabs were of granite, all apparently dressed, meaning shaped by hand, while the remaining side-stones were of the local limestone. Granite does not occur naturally in the immediate area; the nearest source is roughly a mile to the east of Jeanville, and it is thought that glacial drift may have made the stone accessible to whoever built the grave. The capstone itself extended beyond the cist in both the north-east and south-west directions, and smaller stones were used to pack the exterior and level the mouth so that it sealed cleanly. The orientation of the whole structure ran north-east to south-west. The cremated bones were not reduced to fine fragments, which suggests the body had not been subjected to especially intense heat before being placed inside. Nothing else was recovered from the burial, no pottery, no personal objects, no grave goods of any kind.

The site does not exist in isolation. A small enclosure, since levelled, was recorded in the immediate vicinity at the time of discovery, and it may have been a barrow, an earthen burial mound, originally associated with the cist. If so, the grave was likely once marked on the surface in a way that has long since been erased by centuries of agricultural activity, leaving only the stone chamber underground, waiting to be found by a plough.