Only one face is visible. At the left-hand side is a double rolled edge moulding, deeply cut and modelled. Within are parts of two registers of interlaced medallion scroll with a possible hook leaf terminal in the spandrel; its form is pointed. The cutting is deep and plastic.

This is one of the rare Anglian pieces of the area. Its severe scroll, with the minimum of foliage and the geometrical rigidity of the medallions, has more in common with Acca's cross at Hexham, Northumberland (Cramp 1984, I, 174–6, II, pl. 170, 906) than with any monument in eastern Yorkshire. Only Patrington 1 is in the same tradition, though there the plant form is more organic. In Yorkshire, one would have to turn to Otley, West Riding, for a parallel (Collingwood 1915, figs. d and i on 225), and even there the plant-scroll is more florid. It appears to be one of the earliest Anglian stones in Ryedale, without local parallels. The stylistic connection with Hexham perhaps reflects the ecclesiastical links between it and York, initially cemented by Wilfrid. Further, if Cramp is right in seeing scrolls from elsewhere in Yorkshire, such as the earliest scrolls from Otley, as the result of influence from a Wearmouth/Jarrow, co. Durham, school of carvers (Cramp 1978, 8), the northern parallel need not be surprising.

The site of Gilling East is very close to both Hovingham and Stonegrave, the former with Anglian sculpture, and the latter documented as a monastery in the mid eighth century (Whitelock 1955, 764) associated with another at near-by Coxwold. Slender though this evidence is, it is tempting to postulate that the cluster of four sites were interrelated in the eighth century.