[1] Various sources suggest she originally went missing on 25 February 1308, the day of King Edward II's coronation, before finally appearing in Ledbury as a recluse.

[2] Indeed, McAvoy explained that Katherine must have been "one of the most desirable widows of the [Welsh border] region"; the fact that she didn't immediately remarry would have been unusual at the time, providing "fodder for a future mythologising of her life.

"[2] According to the antiquarian Rotha Mary Clay, Katherine gave away part of her maternal inheritance in 1312, and based on the location of the deed, it is likely she was already living in Ledbury and that the bishop had enclosed her as an anchoress in the church of St. Michael and All Angels.

[13] John Masefield clarified these claims, stating that in November 1308, Katherine had obtained a license to grant her dower-lands to her son Nicholas in return for an annual payment of £100 for her sustenance.

Masefield speculated she may have wandered, looking for a place to rest, as various legends suggest, or she may have taken up residence in one of her properties in Newport, Shropshire, or Llandovery, Carmarthenshire.

[16] At some point between then and 1323, her life as an anchoress began: she was first referred to as a "recluse" on a deed dated 1323 in which she was allotted an annuity of £30 through the sheriff of Hereford, “the sums being paid,” according to Clay, “out of lands which were in the custody of her husband's executor.”[1] Clay concluded that Katherine had made arrangements about her property in order to obtain a pension that would fund her life as an anchoress.

"[18] The antiquarian later drew a sketch of the supposed marks, which he claimed to have found in the sandstone rocks of Whelpley Brook in Herefordshire and which the locals called the "tracks of St. Catherine's Mare and Colt.

[20] Having continued her journey and reached the village of Bosbury, Katherine heard the bells ringing and sent Mabel to identify the cause.

[21] It was only upon reaching Ledbury that Katherine finally heard the church bells ringing of their own accord and decided to remain “under the shadow of the bell-tower” as an anchoress.

[1] Masefield has conjectured that Katherine may even have been named after the original St. Catherine, "from being born on her Day, or from some vow or other devotion that her parents had made or felt.

[2] The poem, published in 1835 and described by Alexandra Walsham of Cambridge University as "a salutary reminder of the role played by poets and scholars in the invention and reinvention of lapsed traditions,"[25] immortalized the legend of Katherine and the bells:

When human touch (as monkish books attest) Nor was applied nor could be, Ledbury bells Broke forth in concert flung adown the dells, And upward, high as Malvern's cloudy crest; Sweet tones, and caught by a noble lady blest To rapture!

[26] For the book's epigraph, he gave a Latin phrase often found inscribed on medieval bells, Sum rosa pulsata mundi Katerina vocata, meaning, "When struck, I am the Rose of the World, called Katherine.

"[27] With regard to the side chapel bearing Katherine's name in St. Michael and All Angels Church, Masefield believed it was built over the site of her hermitage and tomb.