The structure is modest but deliberately made: drystone walling drawn inward and closed with a lintel roof, a south-facing opening, and a short flight of stone steps leading down to the water. Cups hang from a rack near the well, and votive offerings left by those who have made the journey accumulate around it. Lighting has been installed at some point, which gives the site an odd quality after dark, a small illuminated hollow in the slope.

The well is the concluding station in the pattern of St Gobnait, an early Irish saint closely associated with Ballyvourney, where her church and a much-venerated medieval statue have drawn devotees for centuries. A pattern is a local pilgrimage circuit, typically involving a sequence of prayers and ritual movements between fixed points; this well is where the circuit ends. At this final station, water is taken, and a series of Paters, Aves, and Glorias are recited. The pilgrimage is documented by Peter Harbison in his 1991 survey of Irish pilgrimage sites, and the well itself was described in the Archaeological Inventory of County Cork, Volume 3, published in 1997. St Gobnait is thought to have lived in the sixth century and is associated with beekeeping, healing, and the Ballyvourney area specifically, where her feast day on 11 February still draws people to perform the pattern.

The gravel path leading to the well is flanked by iron railings, and the top surface above the structure has been paved at some stage, details that speak to ongoing use and gradual, practical maintenance rather than restoration for its own sake. Visitors approaching from the graveyard will find the well a short walk to the south, tucked into the slope rather than standing clear of it, which makes it easy to miss if you are not looking at ground level.