Matthews and Michel \cite{Michel} investigated the minimum distances of certain algebraic-geometry codes arising from a higher degree place $P$. In terms of the Weierstrass gap sequence at $P$, they proved a bound that gives an improvement on the designed minimum distance. In this paper, we consider those of such codes which are constructed from the Hermitian function field $\mathbb F_{q^2}(\HC)$. We determine the Weierstrass gap sequence $G(P)$ where $P$ is a degree $3$ place of $\mathbb F_{q^2}(\HC)$, and compute the Matthews and Michel bound with the corresponding improvement. We show more improvements using a different approach based on geometry. We also compare our results with the true values of the minimum distances of Hermitian $1$-point codes, as well as with estimates due to Xing and Chen \cite{XC}