That small act of vertical ambition is a useful clue to how seriously this monument was conceived.

The tomb is built in a style characteristic of medieval ecclesiastical stonework. A trefoil gabled arch, meaning an arch whose head is shaped into three rounded lobes and finished with a pointed gable above, runs across the top and is decorated with dog-tooth ornament, a repeated series of small pyramidal notches that was popular in Irish Gothic work. Two limestone pillars support the arch at either end, each capped with plain granite capitals. Below, the base is constructed to resemble an altar, measuring roughly 2.8 metres long and just over a metre in height, with a depth of around 0.93 metres. Across the front of this altar-like base runs a blind arcade of trefoil arches, a row of decorative arched recesses that do not open through the wall. This lower section, measuring about 1.98 metres across, may not have been made for this tomb at all; it is thought to have come from a separate monument and been incorporated here at some point, giving the whole composition a subtly composite quality, two distinct phases of craftsmanship brought together into a single structure.