It is not polished or elaborate, but that is part of what makes it worth a second look. Incised into its face is a two-line cross, the kind of early medieval carved marker sometimes called a cross-slab, where the design is cut directly into the stone rather than shaped in relief. The cross occupies roughly two-thirds of the slab's surface, and at its centre a small circular hollow, or cup-mark, has been cut into the stone. The angles where the arms of the cross meet the border are hollowed out, giving the design a spare, slightly tensioned quality that a flat drawing does not quite capture.

The site known as Sevenchurches is the monastic city of Glendalough, founded in the sixth century and one of the most significant early Christian settlements in Ireland. The Cathedral to which this slab belongs is the largest of the surviving buildings on the site. Harold Leask, the architectural historian who documented so much of Ireland's ecclesiastical heritage in the mid-twentieth century, described the slab in his 1950 study, noting its dimensions and its position relative to the Cathedral's south-west angle. A drawing of the slab also appeared in Robert Cochrane's detailed survey of Glendalough's ecclesiastical remains, published in 1925 as part of the Eightieth Annual Report of the Commissioners of Public Works in Ireland, which suggests it was already considered worthy of careful record more than a century ago.

Visitors to Glendalough who spend time near the Cathedral's south-west corner, rather than moving straight through the site, are most likely to come across it. The slab sits close to the ground and close to the building, easily passed without notice if attention is elsewhere.