The stone, roughly 41 centimetres across and 27 centimetres deep, tapers towards the top and is carved with convex and concave mouldings. A socket on its upper surface, now only partially intact due to surface fracturing, would once have held an upright cross. It is a cross base, the kind of footing erected along roadsides and at significant spots in the landscape to mark a place of prayer or memory, and this one has had a complicated journey to its present resting place.

Local tradition holds that the cross originally stood on top of Mayfield Hill, known locally as Anthony's Hill, where it was erected by Lady Margaret O'Brien to mark the spot where her husband's funeral cortege halted overnight during its journey from Ballycahill to Fethard. The monument, as recorded by Morrisey in 1994, consisted of a two-foot square stone surmounted by a cross, with its inscription formed in raised lettering rather than carved into the surface. After some years the structure collapsed into a nearby quarry and the cross head broke off. What survived, the base stone and a plaque, eventually found its way to Brickendown, where the plaque was inserted into the gate pier and the carved base remained alongside it, removed from its original context but preserved by proximity to someone who recognised its significance.