The site is roughly circular in plan, measuring around sixty metres in diameter, and its retaining wall of random rubble masonry follows the contour of the hillock's crown, giving the whole enclosure a quietly fortified appearance. An entrance gate at the south-west corner offers the only formal way in, and the ground within slopes gently with the rise of the mound beneath it.

The Church of Ireland parish church of Castletownroche sits just north of the graveyard's centre, anchoring the site to a tradition of Protestant ecclesiastical use that continues, at least occasionally, to the present day. The earliest surviving headstones date from the mid-eighteenth century, though the elevated and circular character of the enclosure hints at a site history that may stretch back considerably further; subcircular enclosures on hillocks in Ireland are often associated with early medieval ecclesiastical or ceremonial use, even where the visible fabric is entirely later in date. A chest tomb is also present, a box-like above-ground monument that was fashionable among the better-off families of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and its presence here was noted by the local antiquarian Grove White in the 1890s.

The hillock itself gives the site an unusual quality of exposure. Headstones that elsewhere might go unnoticed take on a different character when the ground they occupy rises above the surrounding landscape, and the rubble wall that rings the summit makes the boundary between the burial ground and the world outside feel particularly deliberate.