The cemetery is situated beneath the Western Heights with its entrance at the top of Cowgate Hill and has an area of just over two acres. It is shown on a number of historic OS maps dating to the then of the 19th and early 20th century. The site was opened 1834 when Mr. William Mowll, of a family prominent in local civic affairs, donated 21/4 acres of pastureland on the edge of the town for a burial ground to St Mary's Parish Church. The first interment in 1837 it was the successor to the old churchyard. The cemetery was closed to general use in the 1870's with the opening of the Copt Hill cemeteries but continued to be used where plots had already been purchased or there were vacancies in family plots. The final burial took place in 2006, and was that of William Ebenezer Petchey aged 105, a member of the family who were for a long period sextons at Cowgate.

Originally this New Burial Ground was completed with a mortuary chapel and a lodge for the sexton. The last occupant of the lodge before closure of the cemetery in the 1950s, William Petchey, had been born there, successor to his father and grandfather.

The site is rectangular, enclosed on three sides by a high ragstone wall. Its upper boundary, the fourth side, consists of a row of vaults excavated in the chalk hillside. The excavated vaults, with tiny 'front gardens', along the upper boundary were the last resting place of prominent Dover families. The terrain is steep and the wall of the lower boundary presents a drop of some six feet to the lane, which runs along the rear of the Sarah Gorely Almshouses built in 1877. At the junction of this lane and Cowgate Hill, tall double gates adorn the entrance for hearses. A small gate at the other corner of the lower boundary wall afforded access for handcarts or biers pushed up a path from Snargate Street and the populous dockside district. Some of the graves were damaged during the WWII bombing of the town (1-5)

<1> Kent History Forum (Digital archive). SWX15715.

<2> Landmark, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 1st edition 1862-1875): Landmark Epoch 1 (Map). SKE30964.

<3> Landmark, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 2nd Edition, 1897-1900): Landmark Epoch 2 (Map). SKE30965.

<4> Landmark, 1907-1923, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 3rd Edition, 1907-1923): Landmark Epoch 3 (Map). SKE30966.

<5> Landmark, Ordnance Survey 1:2,500 map (OS 4th Edition, 1929-1952): Landmark Epoch 4 (Map). SKE30967.