The most obvious explanation is that these are putlog holes, gaps left by the timber scaffolding poles used during construction, a common enough feature in medieval masonry. But a local observer named O'Regan, writing in 1901, offered a different reading entirely, suggesting the openings once housed sliding panels designed to ventilate the interior of the church. Whether that theory holds water is uncertain, but it lodges itself in the mind as you walk the site.

The building itself is substantial. The nave runs over thirty metres east to west and more than ten metres across, with a chancel added later at the eastern end, its surviving length still stretching nearly fourteen metres. The addition of the chancel required cutting a new arch, 3.6 metres wide, into the existing east wall of the nave, and the springings of that arch, the lowest curved stones from which it once rose, are still visible where the upper sections have fallen. At the western ends of the chancel's north and south walls, a pair of plain, bluntly pointed arched openings survive, each about 2.3 metres wide. Much of the chancel's side walling has broken down, particularly towards the east, and the chancel's east wall has gone entirely. The nave's west wall has been reduced to its foundations. What remains stands close to its original height in places, though the walls are now heavily covered in ivy, which both preserves and obscures the detail beneath. Two window embrasures survive in the nave's south wall, on either side of a ruined doorway; both were double-splayed, meaning the window opening widens on both the interior and exterior face, a technique that draws in light while maintaining the thickness of the wall.