Measuring just under two metres in length and nearly a metre wide, it carries a faded square par saltire, a decorative cross set diagonally within a square frame, carved into its upper portion. Below that, the surface is covered in plain English script arranged in horizontal bands and around the margin, but the centuries have been unkind: the only words still legible read WHO DIED Ye 23RD DCBR…Ye 57. The date 1700 survives, and with it the outline of a life that has otherwise dissolved into worn stone.

The church beside which these slabs rest has its own complicated history. The medieval church of St Nicholas of Myra stood here for centuries, dedicated to the same bishop of fourth-century Myra in modern Turkey whose cult spread across medieval Europe, often appearing in market towns and ports. By around 1813, the building had either fallen into disrepair or been deemed surplus to requirements, and it was demolished and replaced by a Church of Ireland church on the same site. The graveslabs predate that replacement by more than a century, and the community they memorialise would have known the older medieval structure rather than its successor. The three slabs are aligned on a northwest to southeast axis, a slight deviation from the more common east-west orientation, and the decorated slab is the most westerly of the three.