Cowherd advocated and encouraged members of his then small group of followers, known as Bible Christians or "Cowherdites", to abstain from the eating of meat as a form of temperance.

[3][5] It is noted that he asked his congregation in a sermon preached on 18 January 1809,[6] to refrain from eating meat which culminated in the founding of the Vegetarian Society in 1847.

[7] Cowherd died on 24 March 1816 and was buried in the Christ Church yard with the inscription at his request after Alexander Pope's verse about "He who would save a sinking land": "All feared, none loved, and few understood".

According to William Axon "It was at one time a circulating library, accessible to the public upon easy terms, but the books are not such as can be read by those who run."

It was a scholar's library, strong in theology (including the London polyglott edition of the Bible, 1657), with some mystical works and books on health from the 17th century and later.