It is an arresting situation for any piece of medieval or early-modern stonework: no plinth, no interpretive panel, no obvious sense of ceremony, just carved limestone sharing space with the ordinary business of a parish building.

One of the heads was described in detail by the scholar Peter Harbison in 1973. His account is worth dwelling on. The hair, he wrote, sits high on the head almost like a wig, combed diagonally outwards from a central parting before rolling into a slight wave above the forehead and then projecting outwards and upward into a large curled crop above the ears. It is a remarkably specific hairstyle for a piece of stone, and the precision of the carving suggests a craftsman working within a recognisable decorative tradition, possibly ecclesiastical architecture, where human heads frequently appeared as decorative bosses or corbels. The block itself is limestone and measures 31 centimetres in height, with a face some 52 centimetres by 32 centimetres. The carved head occupies one face of the block, implying the stone was once part of a larger composition or structural element, now lost or dispersed.

The fragment is described as an architectural piece, which places it within the category of carved stonework that once formed part of a building, as opposed to a freestanding sculpture or grave marker. Without knowing the original structure, the heads exist in a kind of partial context, identifiable in style but orphaned from their setting. That Harbison thought them worth detailed description in 1973 suggests they were already recognised as something out of the ordinary even then.