[New post] Who or where or why what … is the Volka of Kingsland?

St Michael's Kingsland in Herefordshire is a pretty large church, all of a piece as Pevsner puts it, dating from the fourteenth century and showing a rather idiosyncratic taste for triangles that perhaps reflects the work of a master from Bristol. (the parapet at St Mary Redcliffe shares his taste.)

There is some good fourteenth century glass in the chancel: an unusual set of the four archangels Gabriel, Michael, Uriel and Raphael (remember the church's dedication) rather heavily though effectively restored - which do not feel to me to be in theit orginal array, overfaced as they are by the Mortimer and Catgedral heraldry - and also a sainted but un-named archbishop: arch because he carried a cruciform staff, so not St Thomas Cantelupe (sorry, Mr Dean). Augustine? Becket?

The party-piece and puzzle of the church, though, is the little. presumably chantry chapel of c.1320-40 which lies off the porch. It's been called the Volka or Vaukel Chapel since c.1700, but no-one knows the origin or meaning of the name. Given the date of its architecture the idea that it was built as a chantry for those killed at the Battle of Mortimer's Cross (1461) doesn't really hold water, though it is now used to commemorate the event and may well have been so used earlier. A Mortimer daughter of the right date did marry a Berkeley and was buried in Bristol though, so just possibly that was the connection.