It is situated on the northern slope of St. Abelard's Hill (Wzgórze Św. Wojciecha) and spans the area of 1.8 ha covered with beautiful old trees.
It is one of the oldest graveyards in Poznań which was established in 1810 as the cemetery of St. Mary Magdalene's parish church. By the end of the 19th century, when the parish was granted a new cemetery at today's Grunwaldzka Street, it was called an old parish graveyard.
It was transformed into the cemetery of distinguished residents in 1948. Near the main entrance, there is a Baroque sculpture of the Holy Mother (1771), moved in 1829 from the old monastery of the Order of the Friars Minor in Śródka.
Many sepulchral sculptures are of high artistic value. The monument of Aniela Dembińska (from the Liszkowski family), who died in 1888, is of interest; it was made in 1889 by Władysław Marcinkowski in Paris. The oldest gravestones date back to 1813 and 1815.
The necropolis is the resting place of many distinguished residents of Poznań and Wielkopolska Region, veterans of Napoleonic wars and national uprisings, community workers, scientists and artists. The remains of many of them were moved here from other cemeteries in the years 1959-62.
The following former city mayors are buried here: Szymon Wroniecki, Jarogniew Drwęski and Cyryl Ratajski. The graveyard is a also a resting place for eminent doctors, including Ludwik Gąsiorowski (1807-63), Tomasz Drobnik (1858-1901), Bolesław Krysiewicz (1862-1932) and Ireneusz Wierzejewski (1881-1930); and scientists such as philologist Bolesław Erzepki (1852-1932), historian Józef Łukaszewicz (1799-1873) and botanist Józef Paczoski (1864-1942).
Such eminent artists as a pianist and composer Raul Koczalski (1885-1948), actress Nuna Młodziejowska - Szczurkiewiczowa (1875-1933) and sculptor Władysław Marcinkowski are also buried here.
It is also a burial place of Marceli Motte, Hipolit Cegielski (symbolic) and General Stanisław Taczak (1874-1960), the first commander of the Wielkopolska Uprising.
W 1994, Polskie Towarzystwo Tatrzańskie (Polish Tatra Society) placed a stone commemorating "residents of Wielkopolska, who did not return from the mountains." In the part of the necropolis situated lower, without tombstones, one can find remains of the victims of the plague, which repeatedly visited Poznań in the years 1831-78.