It is situated in the churchyard in the village of Rudston (grid reference TA098678) in the East Riding of Yorkshire.

[1] A possible fossilised dinosaur footprint is said to be on one side of the stone, though a study by English Heritage in 2015 concluded that the claim was unsubstantiated.

The Norman church was almost certainly intentionally built on a site already considered sacred, a practice common through the country – indeed the name of Rudston comes from the Old English "Rood-stane", meaning "cross-stone", implying that a stone already venerated was adapted for Christian purposes.

The many other prehistoric monuments in the area include four cursuses, three of which appear to converge on the site of the monolith.

Thomas Waller states that in 1861 during levelling of the churchyard the surface of the ground near the monolith was raised 5 feet (1.5 m).