The well sits beneath a roughly built stone cover, a statue of Our Lady placed on top, and the opening into the well itself is formed by a lintel, a horizontal stone laid across the gap to frame the entrance. A drain-like channel carries the water away from the base, a practical feature that keeps the site usable rather than waterlogged.

According to local tradition recorded by Roberts in 1988, the well is visited on three separate occasions through the year, with the final and most significant visit falling on the 15th of August, the feast of the Assumption of Mary. This pattern of repeated, seasonal visits is characteristic of patterns known as "rounds" or "patterns" (the word pattern itself derives from "patron", as in patron saint), where devotees return to a holy well on fixed dates to pray and sometimes to walk a prescribed circuit around the site. The well at Dunowen fits neatly into this tradition, its Marian statue connecting an older water veneration to Catholic devotional practice in the way that is common across Ireland. What is slightly unusual here is how plainly functional the structure remains; there is no elaborate stonework or grotto-style ornament, just a rough shelter doing its job.