A (broad): The face is edged at top and bottom by a flat moulding, interrupted at intervals by grouped vertical bands, which suggest baluster-type ornament. It is divided by rather squashed-looking plant stems with triple ridged nodes, from which spring three elongated, rather triangular, hollow-cut leaves, and also the rolled heads of four arches, of which one on the left only survives in part, while the fourth on the right curves down to the lower frame, the plant stem divider on this side being replaced by a conventional column with base, imposts and capital, or possibly two balusters, one superimposed on the other (see also face B).

Within each arch is an animal or bird. (i) The first, incomplete, example faces left, and has the wing and fan-tail of a bird, on both of which the feathers are marked. These are hollow-cut in the manner of the leaves in the spandrels. One three-toed foot extends into the bottom right corner. (ii) The next is a dog-like creature with one of its forelegs in the bottom left, but its backward-turned head facing right. It has a round eye, a pricked, hollow-cut ear, a domed forehead and long jaws, the lower markedly thinner than the upper. Its tail, or perhaps its wing, forms a simple loop on the right, lacing round its only other leg, which extends into the lower right corner. (iii) The third is a bird facing left with a worm-like strand in its jaws, a curved wing which reaches the top of the arch, and a three-toed foot in the bottom right corner. Its wing feathers are shorter and more naturalistic than in the first bay. (iv) The last creature is a winged quadruped with a massive rump higher than its forequarters, facing right. Its feathered wing has a clubbed tip. The head is not clear, but it passes in front of the down-turning arched branch of the plant. The feet look like three-toed paws.

B (narrow): The depiction of the framing column, composed of two baluster shafts, continued from face A, is particularly clear on this side. The upper edge preserves one example of the vertical rolled bands, again suggesting baluster ornament, as on the front, but there is also an incised cable-like twist on this edge. A half-figure leans towards the column: he is meant to be seen in three-quarter view. His left arm with its large hand rests on a large book held in front of him: the fingers of his right hand can be seen also grasping this book. He is clearly robed, his dress expressed by incised parallel lines, apparently wrapped to end in a V-formation in front. His left side is framed by a wing, with short feathers cut like his hair over his shoulder and the lower part marked by three or four parallel lines. His head has sharply-defined arched eyebrows, thin nose and small mouth, and drilled eyes. The top and left side of his head are framed by curls of hair, formed from hollow-cut loops and circles.

C (broad): Dressed flat

D (narrow): Missing, dressed away

This stone is deeper than Rothwell 1, but it is identical in height, and probably belongs to the same scheme of decoration. Unlike Rothwell 1, the return at the right has survived, so that interpretation as an impost is more probable. Both the animals and the arches formed from the trunk and branches of a palm-like tree can be compared to a panel from Breedon, Leicestershire, and another from Castor, Northamptonshire (Cramp 1977, figs. 52b, 57b). The figural style of the half-figure of the man/angel (Ill. 677) links the sculpture with a fragment from Crofton (p. 125, Ill. 183), not too far away to the south of Rothwell. This angel could possibly be an Evangelist symbol, representing St Matthew, but not enough survives of the architectural programme from which this and Rothwell 1 derive, for any certainty of interpretation.