Historic cemeteries are multi-use sites with many different audiences engaging with them in a multitude of ways and there has been some work exploring who these audiences might be. A number of cemeteries in the UK now have champions or support network: a Friends-of group, a Trust, a volunteer network, or someone with in the owning local authority who work hard to promote the site. However, what is less clear whether these champions are aware of who is engaging at a site level and why. I use mixed site heuristic research to explore what kind of analysis is undertaken by these cemeteries to understand the outcomes of activities and installations undertaken on site, and to what extent audience understanding is used to inform new site interpretation, event offers, infrastructure, and site management or to understand the impact of work previously undertaken. This research suggests that most historic cemeteries are not currently engaging with audience development and heritage marketing practices that are more standard in other types of public spaces and explores why this might be. The research also looks at whether understanding audiences’ characteristics, needs and expectations is necessary for 19th-century cemeteries, as the nature and use of these burial grounds is very different to other parks, gardens or heritage spaces. It also suggests which tools and techniques might be taken from the heritage sector that could be used to understand audiences and to ensure that the sites are offering what is needed and understanding what could be offered.