The structure is a leacht, a type of commemorative or devotional monument found across early Christian Ireland, essentially a raised stone table or altar-like platform associated with prayer, pilgrimage, and the veneration of saints or the dead. This one measures roughly 3.65 metres east to west and 3.3 metres north to south, rising between 0.4 and 0.65 metres from the ground, its flat top formed from large limestone slabs. The eastern face is partly obscured by rubble, which gives the whole thing a slightly buried, half-revealed quality, as though the graveyard has been slowly reclaiming it.

The ringed cross set into the leacht's surface dates to the 12th or early 13th century, a period when Irish ecclesiastical sites were undergoing significant reform and rebuilding under the influence of continental monastic movements. A ringed cross, sometimes called a Celtic cross, joins the arms of the cross with a surrounding circle, a form that had been common in Irish stone carving since the early medieval period. That this one is socketed directly into the top of the leacht rather than standing independently on its own base suggests the platform and cross were conceived as a single devotional arrangement, the cross given prominence by being elevated on the stone table beneath it. The combination of structures at Noughaval, the medieval church to the north, the leacht, the cross, and the later chapel to the east, points to a site of sustained religious significance across several centuries.