The cairn was never excavated on anyone's terms; it was discovered, and partially destroyed, when scrub clearance and subsequent construction work in the 1980s cut into what turned out to be a mound roughly 22.5 metres across and a metre high. The western half was levelled before anyone fully understood what was there. What came out of the disturbed earth, however, was remarkable enough to warrant reporting to the National Museum.

The objects recovered span an almost disorienting range of periods and purposes. A Bronze Age stone-axe mould, a stone mortar, iron slag, animal bone, and a spindle whorl emerged during the initial work. Subsequent excavation by C. Cotter in 1988 revealed a rectangular cist-like feature set into the mound; a cist is a small stone-lined box or chamber, typically associated with prehistoric burial, and this one measured just 1.1 metres east to west and 0.6 metres north to south, with its eastern end open and shattered stone flags forming a floor at the western end. The mound itself proved to be composed of weathered scree and dark brown silty clay. From the disturbed upper layers and surrounding area came a decorated sherd of Early Bronze Age pottery, glass and amber beads, stone gaming pieces, a small bronze ring, a bone toggle, a quartz toggle, a loom weight, hones, a strike-a-light, an early medieval spearhead, and a key for a barrel-padlock. The presence of that last object alone suggests the mound was not simply sealed after its original use but was returned to, built upon, and interfered with across many centuries. Further deposits found roughly 35 metres to the north yielded a stone dagger or knife and a bronze object with a raised mid-rib, possibly another dagger. The site sits within a multiperiod field system, which lends some context to why so many different eras left traces in the same small patch of hillside.