The object is a lugged font, a stone basin fitted with small projecting ears or lugs that would have allowed it to be mounted or secured, once used to hold holy water in a church or religious house. It is not large, measuring roughly 46 centimetres across at the top and 35 centimetres high, and today only the bowl itself survives.

The font is thought to have originated at Ross Abbey, a religious site that lies to the north-northwest of the farmhouse where the stone now rests. How or when it made the journey between the two locations is not recorded. What is known is that the font was carved from a single block of limestone, and that at some point a severe frost shattered it into three fragments. Limestone, though durable under ordinary conditions, is vulnerable to water that seeps into its surface and then freezes and expands, and this appears to be precisely what happened here. The three pieces remain together, but the font is effectively broken beyond any liturgical use, preserved now as an object of material and historical interest rather than function.