What makes this monument quietly unusual is not just its scale but the precision with which it appears to have survived: scholars believe the cairn stands today at very nearly its original height, and that the dished top has not lost material over the millennia. The perimeter, too, remains relatively intact. Around the base, a ring of briar vegetation stops about 10 metres short of the cairn itself, as if keeping a respectful distance, while the cairn and the clear ground immediately surrounding it are covered in grass.

The construction reveals a deliberate and somewhat puzzling choice of materials. The main body of the cairn is built from locally available limestone, yet the kerbstones, the internal stone revetment, and the dry-walling are all made from gneiss, a much older and harder metamorphic rock that would have required sourcing from elsewhere. About 25 kerbstones survive, concentrated along the south-western arc of the perimeter, each laid flat with its long axis following the curve of the cairn. Some 3 metres inside the kerb, a further 15 gneiss stones describe a curved line running parallel to it, most likely the remnant of an internal stone revetment, a structural ring built within the cairn's body to help hold the mass of material in place, that probably once circled the entire monument. On the south side, a low platform, around 9 metres wide, extends along the base of the cairn, transforming at its western end into a narrow bank that curves back into the cairn in a U-shape, possibly an original architectural feature, though its precise purpose remains uncertain. Extensive quarrying has been carried out within the site, particularly on the north and western sides, likely accounting for the loss of much of the upper material, though, as noted by Stefan Bergh in his 1995 study, this quarrying appears to have worked down from the upper edges rather than removing the lower mass, which explains why the perimeter has fared better than the interior. Four smaller stone monuments cluster immediately around the main cairn, and roughly 400 metres to the north-east, another large cairn and possible passage tomb occupies a neighbouring hill.