Towards the south end of Braithwell High Street (B6376), on a traffic island just in Holywell Lane (B6427), the stump of a worn shaft of Magnesian limestone on an octagonal base and square plinth stands at the junction of four roads (the other roads are Maltby Lane, the continuation of the B6376, and Ashton Lane). The monument is Grade II listed. It is surrounded by railings so it was not possible to measure, or to assess the plane of each face and what might have been lost by breakage and wear. It is not mentioned in Pevsner (1967).

Hunter had the wording of the inscription from the late Dr Samuel Pegge, ‘one of the most sensible and able of antiquaries [who] with his usual sagacity read it thus as a species of verse. A copy of it, as it formerly was may be seen in Gough’s edition of Camden with a bad reading’ (Hunter 1828, I, 135). Hunter remarked that by his own time the piece had been wrongly restored, and the date 1191 added. This 'restoration' was in 1798 (Hey 2003, 153). There were further restorations in 1887 and 1953.

The inscription has been interpreted as referring to Richard I’s ransom, the “frere” being John, but David Hey finds several problems with this interpretation, and believes the inscription on the stone probably refers to Earl Hamelin Plantagenet of Conisbrough, half-brother of Henry II, and that the stone was reused as the market cross in 1289 (Hey 2003, 153). It has been compared with a former cross at Doncaster, with an inscription to Otes de Tilly (Hey 2003, 79-80; Hunter 1828, I, 11).

The chamfer-stops are of a form seen in the late 12thc, but their large size suggests a later date. Hamelin died in 1202.