What was once almost certainly a tall, elaborately carved high cross has been reduced over the centuries to its lowest surviving elements, and yet even this fragment carries considerable weight, both physical and historical. The base measures 1.4 metres by 1.15 metres, and from it rises the bottom section of a shaft, just under a metre tall, decorated with fret-pattern, a repeating geometric interlace common in early medieval Irish stone carving.

High crosses, those tall free-standing stone crosses characteristic of early Christian Ireland, were typically carved with scriptural scenes, abstract ornament, or both, and served as focal points for prayer, preaching, and communal gathering. Ferns itself was one of the most significant ecclesiastical settlements in early medieval Leinster, and the presence of a high cross here, even in its current truncated state, is consistent with the site's former importance. The surviving shaft fragment, measuring 0.57 metres by 0.34 metres in section, preserves its fret decoration clearly enough to confirm the quality of the original workmanship, even if the upper portions of the cross, the head and most of the shaft, are long gone. The cross is noted in published sources from the early twentieth century and in Peter Harbison's comprehensive 1992 survey of Irish high crosses.