These were informal, unconsecrated plots used for centuries to bury unbaptised infants, who, under the theological conventions of the time, were considered ineligible for consecrated ground. They tend to occupy liminal spots, field edges, old earthworks, or slightly elevated patches of ground that sat outside the parish graveyard's jurisdiction, and they are found in their hundreds across the country.

This particular example at Cappataggle is irregularly shaped, stretching roughly twelve metres east to west and three metres north to south. It is defined on the eastern side by a scarp, a low natural or cut edge in the ground, and on the north and south by the natural slope of the rise. The grave-markers are modest, as is typical of such sites: small limestone blocks, most of them now thickly grown with moss, set in a north to south alignment. The monument has not survived intact. Quarrying activity to the south-west, west, and north-west has disturbed the ground, eating into what would once have been the full extent of the burial area, so what remains represents only a portion of the original site.