The middle example, just over two and a half metres wide, is unusual in that the moulded quatrefoil openings inserted into the wall above it actually encroach on one of those lancets, suggesting that whoever designed or positioned these monuments was working with considerable ambition within a tight space. Tomb niches of this kind were recessed wall monuments intended to receive the effigy or remains of a significant patron or benefactor, and this one retains the lower framework of three trefoil-headed arches, likely once supported on slender columns of the kind still visible in the southernmost of the three niches.

The decorative language of the monument points firmly to the thirteenth century. The carvings incorporate foliage, nail-head, chevron, and cable motifs, a vocabulary drawn from Romanesque and Transitional architecture, the latter term referring to the period when rounded Romanesque forms were giving way to the pointed arches of Gothic building. Scholars have used these details to argue that all three niches belong to the original construction phase of the church, dating to around 1241. The question of exactly what everything in the building was built for has kept researchers occupied for some time. The scholar Macalister, writing in 1913, believed that a sedilia in the north wall of the chancel, with mouldings strikingly similar in style to this monument, was itself another tomb niche. A sedilia is a set of recessed seats used by clergy during the Mass, and the counterargument, noted by McKeon in 2009, is a practical one: unlike a tomb niche, this feature sits roughly half a metre above floor level, which is inconsistent with funerary use. The resemblance in carving style across both features, whatever their respective functions, speaks to a coherent and ambitious programme of stone decoration at the church from its earliest years.