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The Herefordshire countryside at this time would have been fairly open farmland and crossed by both major paved roads and minor tracks. The main changes in the landscape from that of the Iron Age were the paved roads which ignored previous boundaries. In this landscape were towns, villages and farmhouses. Fields of corn and meadows with grazing animals would have been as characteristic of the area then as they would be for centuries to come. Larger settlements in Herefordshire included the walled towns at Kenchester (Magnis), Leintwardine (Bravonium) and Stretton Grandison (possibly Eposessa). Magnis, the best-known town in the area, was seven kilometres to the west of the site of modern Hereford, and stood on a main north-south road which crossed the Wye by mean of a bridge. There was another smaller settlement at Blackwardine near Leominster and another at Staunton-on-Arrow.
In the south of the county, at Weston-under-Penyard, Ariconium was a major industrial centre. Thousands of tons of Roman slag in the area suggest that iron-working continued for centuries there, fed by the local ores and the carefully managed woods of the Forest of Dean.
Although some settlements may have been new, many people continued to live in places that had been inhabited in of pre-Roman times. Occupation at the Sutton Walls hillfort continued through much of the Roman period. Probably more typical were the lowland villages, scattered through the countryside.
Even though there have been Roman finds in Hereford itself there is no reason to suppose that a settlement of any size existed there. However the east-west road from Kenchester to Worcester runs just to the North of Hereford (where it is known simply as 'The Roman Road') and it is possible that a shrine or temple existed in the area.
The early medieval kingdoms of south-western Britain at a time when the terms 'England' and 'Wales' were unknown.
After the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain in 410 AD, new smaller political entities took the place of the centralised structure. A kingdom of Ergyng (or Ercic) seems to have been based on, and named after, the old town of Ariconium and covered what is now southern Herefordshire. To the west of Ergyng, the town of Venta (Caerwent) gave its name to the kingdom of Gwent. Beyond Gwent, Glywysing occupied modern Glamorganshire.
North of Gwent, Ewias, may have originally been a small kingdom before it became a commote of Gwent. To the north and north-west of modern Herefordshire the precursor of the Kingdom of Powys was probably centred on Viroconium (Wroxeter) the tribal city of the Cornovii.
Ergyng presumable had a Christian Church from Roman times. However, the outstanding figure in the history of the church of Ergyng is St Dyfrig, or Dubricius. Dyfrig seems to have emerged from the local Romano-British population and is said to have been born at Lann Ebrdil (Madley) in the 5th century. He began his activities at the time when the British kingdoms had a 70-year respite from Germanic incursions following their victory at Mons Badonicus (legend says under Arthur) in around 500AD. Dyfrig founded large teaching monasteries, first at Henn Lann Dyfrig (Llanfrother near Hoarwithy) and subsequently at Mochros (Moccas). A bishopric seems to have been based at St Constantine's Church at Garthbenni by 500AD.
In the early 6th century Ergyng seems to have been part of a large kingdom which also included Gwent & Glywysing. The ruler of this land, King Erb, died in around AD 555, and his kingdom was divided amongst his sons - Peibio becoming king of Ergyng. Peibio was later called 'the dribbler' but this may be an error based on the similarity between the old Welsh word for dribbling and the word for leprosy. If Peibio did suffer from leprosy, so did many other people - it would be many centuries before leprosy disappeared from the British Isles.