The effect, at first glance, is that of a wedge tomb, the type of Neolithic megalithic monument whose angled capstone this roofing slab closely resembles. But this is not a tomb. It is a shelter, one that began as an accident of geology and was quietly, practically improved by human hands.

The slab itself, measuring three metres along its longer axis and up to half a metre thick at its southern end, is held in place partly by the natural hillslope beneath it and partly by a large boulder at the south that appears to have been deposited there by natural processes. What is clearly deliberate is the crude stone pillar constructed at the southwest corner, where four irregular sandstones have been carefully selected and stacked to fill the gap between a basal stone and the underside of the roof, with a small pinning stone wedged on the inner face of the uppermost piece to keep the arrangement stable. The builders, whoever they were, understood the load they were working with. Along the northwest side, the collapsed remains of a low drystone wall, a wall built without mortar from dry-laid stone, once enclosed this side of the shelter. It is possible that the stones used to build it had simply been rolled out from under the slab to clear the interior, then stacked along the open edge as a windbreak. The original opening faced roughly southwest to north-northeast, and the collapsed wall suggests someone took the trouble to close off at least part of that exposure. Inside, the space is cramped, with headroom ranging from around forty-four centimetres at the lower northeastern end to one and a half metres at the southwest where the prop stone stands. Small stones pressed into the ground surface point to the space having been used, though by whom, and for how long, the hillside does not say.