Look more carefully and the geometry becomes deliberate: a flat, waterlogged oval platform, roughly 30 metres north to south and 25 metres east to west, raised above the surrounding ground and defined by a distinct scarp on its outer edge. Around that central platform runs a lower encircling mound, itself elevated above the field level, giving the whole structure a stepped, tiered profile. This is what classifies it as a stepped barrow, a form of prehistoric burial monument in which concentric raised elements create something like a series of diminishing terraces around a central area.

The monument occupies a slight natural north-south hillock, and it is possible that the original builders were working with and reshaping a pre-existing natural feature rather than constructing entirely from scratch. The external berm, the flat shelf of earth running around the outside of the inner mound, varies noticeably in width: narrower on the east and west sides at around seven metres, and considerably broader to the north and south, where it reaches between ten and fifteen metres. Two streams frame the site, one running close outside the south-east quadrant and another roughly forty metres to the north-north-west; both were already mapped by the time the first Ordnance Survey six-inch edition was published in 1839, suggesting they are longstanding features of this small river valley. The ground rises steeply to the west, which limits views in that direction, but the monument would have had reasonable open sightlines to the north, east, and south.