The cemetery is located on Hospital Hill Road in the suburb of Seaview on an elevated site north-east of the town, giving a good outlook over the settlement and the Tasman Sea.

[1] The monument memorialises four explorers, surveyors Henry Whitcombe (1830–1863), Charlton Howitt (1838–1863), and George Dobson (1840–1866), and government agent Charles Townsend (1826–1863).

[1] Amongst the earliest burials in the cemetery are those who drowned after a boat ferrying passengers from the steamer SS Lady Darling to shore, on 29 July 1865, was overwhelmed in the surf: Allen Thomas, Robert Turner, Edward Samson, unknown Thompson, John McIntosh, George Hawkins and Henry Heron or Hearn.

[4] The Hungerford Mausoleum is the largest monument in Hokitika Cemetery and is listed by Heritage New Zealand as a Category II structure.

The mausoleum was built to house the infant sons of Thomas Walter Hungerford and Eliza (née Delany).