Unlike its neighbours of Shropshire to the north and Worcestershire to the east, Herefordshire was not richly endowed with monastic establishments in the Middle Ages. Hereford Cathedral was of the Old Foundation, i.e. non-monastic. There was a Benedictine priory at Leominster and the Knights of St John (the Hospitallers) had commanderies at Dinmore and Garway.

Catholicism lingered on in remote Herefordshire after the Reformation in spite of the best efforts of John Scory, a former Dominican friar, Bishop of Hereford 1559-1585, to extirpate it. In the 17th century, Henry Somerset, 1st Marquess of Worcester, was a Catholic convert and from Raglan Castle in Monmouthshire was able to provide a degree of protection to his co-religionists. St John Kemble (1599-1679) was born in Herefordshire and after 50 years of itinerant ministry was martyred at Hereford in the aftermath of the Popish Plot. He was canonised in 1970 as one of the Forty Martyrs of England and Wales.