Boarded rectangular box with hipped lid, on low turned feet, carved in low relief and painted with romanesque animals.

Structure and metalwork
The wood is a fine grained hardwood, possibly a fruitwood such as pear.

The front and back are pegged/nailed? at half-lap joints to the sides. Two cast metal (bronze?) mounts were presumably nailed around each corner (all but two of which are now missing), with additional mounts of the same form nailed on each side of the lid. The bottom board is pegged (supplemented with modern nails?) to the front, back and sides. Four turned feet of which 3 survive were inserted at the corners of the bottom. The lid is carved from the solid and is now held at the back by two internal metal hinges of uncertain date. A nail survives in the back which may originally have fastened an external hasp of the type that survives on the Dolberg box. On the front a keyhole has been crudely cut into the central round concave dish, and a metal lock added inside.

Later interventions and losses
A slot (approx. x cm long x ) has been cleanly removed (sawn?) from the left side of the lid. Thorpe suggests that this was to allow the box to be used for alms (p. 92).
One foot missing at back left corner.
Section of loss at the front right bottom corner.
There is a hole in the centre of the lid for a missing handle. The Dolberg box retain a metal ring handle in this position.

Decoration
All the exterior surfaces of the box are decorated with a unified scheme of stylised animals and plant forms, interlaced knots and lattice carved in low relief in the solid and enhanced with and green, blue and red, pigments on a white ground (gesso?), with background water(?) gilding on a white ground. It appears that there is some colour underneath the gilding which needs further investigation.

The interior of the box is plain and covered with numerous traces of a reddish paint.
Lid front: a tree with symmetrical branches issuing in fronds is flanked by confronting bipeds passant, their tails trailed between wings resting at the tips on the ground and issuing in similar fronds.
Lid left: on either side of the central tree, winged bipeds confronting below fronded branches, their regardant heads biting off their necks.
Lid right: on either side of the central tree, quadruped monsters passant, their tails carried under their off-hind leg (left) and their near-hind leg (right), and rising into fronded terminals level with their regardant heads.
Lid back: draconic bipeds, paired passant, below the branches of a low tree, their necks resting on the ground, their snarling jaws confronting.
Front: to the left of the central round dish a griffin with angry tail terminating in fronds approaches an aquiline bird, its addorsed head devouring a fronded branch that probably represents a serpent. To the right of the central round dish a biting hound of giant proportions, salient above growing herbs, assaults the back of a deer.
Sides: both sides have similar but unmatched couples of interlacing medallions of beaded ropework.
Back: a lattice pattern of quatrefoils within lozenges.
The front, back and sides, and the four sides of the lid are bordered with key-fret or bead-work.
The underside of the bottom is painted in a reddish colour and is incised with triple diagonal lines to form four triangular compartments, those at the ends each containing a fleur-de-lis.