It measures roughly twelve metres from north to south and just over ten metres across, rising to about 1.2 metres at its highest point, and its opening, around six metres wide, faces out to the west-northwest. The northern half of the mound sits deeper than the southern, and much of it is now overgrown, softened into the slope in the way that prehistoric earthworks tend to become once farming life moves on around them.

This kind of monument is known as a fulacht fia, a term that refers to a type of burnt mound found widely across Ireland and Britain, and dating most commonly to the Bronze Age. The typical interpretation is that they were used for cooking by heating stones in a fire and dropping them into a water-filled trough, though some researchers have proposed other uses including bathing or even industrial processes such as brewing or textile production. The characteristic horseshoe or crescent shape of the mound is formed from the accumulated debris of those heated stones, which crack and splinter when plunged repeatedly into cold water, rendering them useless for further heating. Over time, the discarded stone builds up around three sides of the trough, forming exactly the profile visible at Rowls. The site sits on a south-facing slope, a practical choice that would have offered some shelter and, in all likelihood, proximity to a water source now difficult to identify from the surface.