It was opened in the year 1840 to provide an affordable and respectable place of burial for the people of Gorbals and the surrounding areas of the city of Glasgow.

The cemetery was established in response to the crowded state of the Old Gorbals Burial Ground, on Rutherglen Road.

Proposals for a new cemetery were put forward in 1839, and the following year land was purchased from William Gilmour of Oatlands.

The entrance to the cemetery is at Caledonia Road, via the grand gatehouse which was built in 1848 to designs by the Glasgow architect Charles Wilson.

[3] In 2016, a mural which features the vampire and a brief line describing the 1950s event was created by Ella Bryson and Art Pistol.