A public park runs along its northern boundary and there were reserves for a pound, a gaol, an asylum and an orphanage in the vicinity.

A railway station was opened at Boggo Junction in 1884 and the first horse-drawn bus service linking the area with the city began in 1890.

The main road and the railway pass close to the cemetery, which was important in providing access for funeral corteges and for those visiting graves before private transport was common.

This was an area that had been surveyed for residential subdivision and adding it to the reserve effectively closed a section of Cornwall Street.

The landscaping at the cemetery was improved with the planting of many trees and shrubs, including cypress pines and blue gums along the Brisbane River.

[1] Work on the cemetery was halted by wartime shortages of labour and materials, but recommenced in 1945 when a survey of the cemetery noted lavatory blocks for men and women, two shelter sheds, a timber sexton's cottage, a timber tool room, motor shed and men's room.

[1] The memorials in the cemetery range from those of prominent early residents, displaying fine examples of the mason's skill, to those of prisoners from nearby Brisbane Gaol, including that of bushranger Patrick Kenniff, who was hanged in 1902.

The memorials in the cemetery reflect post World War II immigration and the cultural mix of the South Brisbane area in the second half of the 20th century.

These include Greek and Italian graves and those of the many Russians who first settled around Woolloongabba and South Brisbane in the 1920s, following the Communist takeover in Russia.

However, as with most closed cemeteries, additional burials and interment of ashes in existing family graves continued to occur.

It has gullies in the central section and the layout of graves and plantings is dictated to a large extent by this undulating quality of the land.

The main entrance is on Annerley Road and has formal gates flanked by Iron railings in the form of spears set into a low sandstone wall.

A number of the oldest memorials are large and elaborate displaying Victorian symbolism connected with death, such as broken columns, angels and vine leaves.

Jane Hocking's burial, the oldest in the cemetery, is marked by the carved figure of an angel clinging to a cross atop a tapered column.

[1] The cemetery contains a Trig marker, which was part of a triangulation survey of the South East region carried out by the government in 1883.

In its form, memorials and plantings it provides evidence for the history of Brisbane and of European burial customs in Queensland.

South Brisbane Cemetery has the potential to reveal information on changes in burial customs of the 19th and 20th centuries and on the social fabric of the area it serves from evidence provided by the memorials and inscriptions it contains.

South Brisbane Cemetery has aesthetic value as a picturesque public area comprising elements of landscape, mature trees, plantings, built structures and memorials.

Many of the monuments in South Brisbane Cemetery have aesthetic significance due to the high quality of workmanship and design used in their construction.

They also successfully lobbied the Brisbane City Council to return many old and discarded headstones that were exposed during construction of the neighbouring Eleanor Schonell Bridge.

The FOSBC also organise the popular 'Guardian Angels' community cleaning bees in the cemetery, which have attracted hundreds of participants.