What sets it apart is its form: square in profile, with chamfered edges, its arms spanning just 45 centimetres, and its total height the same. It is compact enough to hold, and plain enough to overlook entirely.

The cross may date to the seventeenth century, and there is a reasonable possibility that it originally served as a finial cross, the kind of small decorative or devotional stone once placed at the apex of a gable or roof ridge on a church building. A finial cross in that sense would not have been a grave marker at all, but an architectural element, shaped to cap a structure rather than commemorate a person. Its current location in the graveyard may be secondary, and it is thought to be associated with a church that also stood within the same site. The cross came to the attention of researchers through a local resident, Mr. Christy Cunniffe, whose knowledge of the area made the record possible.