The first thing that hit the new lord of Penrose Manor when he walked into his ancestral home for the first time wasn’t the huge brass dinner gong in the echoing hallway or the grandfather clock beside it.
It wasn’t the array of swords all bearing the family crest or the cabinet containing the family seals dating back generations. Nor was it the collection of exquisite antique China (one vase alone is valued at more than £20,000) or lacquered chests of drawers and cabinets.
And ravishing as the views over the 1,536-acre estate are from the four picture windows in his cavernous, echoing dining room with its 20ft highly polished table, he barely looked out.
Instead, he couldn’t take his eyes off the painting in the hall of a shy looking man with the slightly droopy hair that was so fashionable in the Seventies.
‘I looked at that portrait,’ says Jordan Adlard Rogers, 31, his eyes welling up. ‘And I could have been looking at a portrait of myself. That was the moment I knew I belonged.
Jordan Adlard Rogers, 31 (pictured left with his partner Katie and their son Joshua), is the new lord of Penrose Manor, a £50 million Cornish estate, which he inherited after the death of Charles Rogers, the last in line of an illustrious family, who have lived in the manor since 1771
‘If I’d seen that portrait 20 years ago, my life would have been so different. I’d have known who my father was and where I came from. I wouldn’t have spent over half my life wondering who I was, feeling only half a person. Now I know I belong. I’m no longer a dirty secret.’
Jordan’s delight is palpable. As well it should be. He’s the former care worker who this week was revealed as the new squire of the £50 million Cornish estate, which he inherited after the death of Charles Rogers, the last in line of an illustrious family, who have lived in the grade II-listed home since 1771.
Jordan is Charles’s illegimate son — conceived during a fling in the Eighties — whose bloodline was only revealed following a DNA test after his father’s death. In this first exclusive interview, he reveals the astonishing leap he has made to arrive at Penrose Manor.
He describes a fractured, nomadic childhood, tainted by violence and with fleeting father figures and a vulnerable, impetuous, free-spirited mother, of whom he’s fiercely protective.
He’s been malnourished, barely educated and often plain cold. He spent five years living with a travelling community, where he was ostracised and bullied by local children, living without a flushing loo or regular hot meal.
But now he is here. Jordan will never have to work again. Along with the estate, regarded as one of the finest still in private hands in Britain, he receives a trust fund of some £100,000 a year.
But most importantly, he insists, he finally knows who he is.
Today, he proudly shows me around the home, with its sweeping drive flanked by acres of bluebells, he shares with his fiancee, Katie Hubber, a hospital radiographer and their five-week-old son Joshua.
He is still visibly reeling from the shock of his new position and the huge responsibility on his shoulders.
The estate was donated to the National Trust by Jordan’s grandparents, Lieutenant Commander John Peverell Rogers and his wife Angela, in exchange for a 1,000-year lease for descendants to live there. Running the land and maintaining the house with its 20 bedrooms is a huge burden.
Jordan's mother Julie (pictured) was already going off the rails when, aged 18, she met Charles Rogers, 31 , at the common in Porthleven where youngsters congregated to drink and smoke. Although hailing from different worlds, they struck up a rapport and started a relationship
But first things first. Jordan’s priority has been to install a ‘games room’ with a 65in flat-screen TV where he can watch football. Meanwhile, Katie is yearning for new units to fill the old-fashioned kitchen which hasn’t been updated since the Sixties.
Still, beneath the body-builder physique and jokey exterior, Jordan is a thoughtful, sensitive soul and, most of all, fiercely protective of his mother and the Adlard side of his family (he only added the Rogers surname recently).
His mother, Julie Adlard, whom he repeatedly tells me he adores, battled drink problems all his young life, but is now sober. She’s 51 and ‘thrilled’ at his good fortune. ‘Mum knows she’s made a lot of mistakes,’ says Jordan carefully.
‘But I don’t want to blame her. She lost her own dad when she was nine and that affected her.
‘She’s picked partners who were violent. I’ve seen her beaten up by boyfriends and was too little to do anything to help.’
Julie was already going off the rails when, aged 18, she met Charles Rogers, 31, at the common in Porthleven where youngsters congregated to drink and smoke. Although hailing from different worlds, they struck up a rapport and started a relationship.
Like Julie, Charles was at the start of a long spiral downhill. Born into a long line of very senior Army and Navy officers, Charles Rogers was the younger son of Lieutenant Commander Rogers and his wife Angela.
Like Julie, Charles (pictured) was at the start of a long spiral downhill. Born into a long line of very senior Army and Navy officers, Charles Rogers was the younger son of Lieutenant Commander Rogers and his wife Angela
When Jordan (pictured) was born on Julie decided to do something which was to deeply muddy the waters for Jordan. Three weeks after his birth, she married a local man called Gary Galloway. The little family moved into a house in nearby Helston
After being sent to a private crammer college in Sussex as a teenager, he spent a brief spell serving in the Army as a non-commissioned officer. He saw active service in Northern Ireland during one of the most violent periods in its history, an experience which, friends say, had a lasting impact on him.
After leaving the Army, he returned to Penrose where he embraced a hippy lifestyle, growing his hair long and styling it into dreadlocks.
To the increasing despair of his parents, he failed to find a profession for himself and lived in a farmhouse on the edge of the estate, enjoying the income he received from the land.
When he met Julie, Charles wasn’t even heir to the estate. That position was occupied by his elder brother Nigel, a former RAF Flight Lieutenant who later became an optician. Tragically, Nigel developed leukaemia and died in the summer of 1987 in his early 30s without leaving any children.
Julie was five months pregnant at the time, unaware that the unborn child she was carrying had become heir to a £50 million estate.
When Jordan was born on born on December 27, 1987, Julie decided to do something which was to deeply muddy the waters for Jordan. Three weeks after his birth, she married a local man called Gary Galloway. The little family moved into a house in nearby Helston.
Wheal Rose in Porthleven, Cornwall, which is where Jordan Adlard Rogers lived when he was six years old
This is the humble childhood home where a young Jordan grew up wondering if he was the heir to the £50million sprawling estate a mile down the road
‘Mum and Gary raised me to believe that he was my dad. I don’t blame her because I can see she thought it would be easier for me,’ says Jordan generously.
‘I don’t know whether Charles suspected I was his son. But, if he did, I guess he didn’t want to cause any friction. I adored Gary. One of my earliest memories is sitting on his shoulders and feeling so safe and happy. It was like a giant was carrying me around.’
But even generous-spirited Jordan struggles to explain the next turn of events.
When he was four, Julie left Gary, blaming his violent temper, and promptly fell in love with a local traveller. Overnight, Jordan was catapulted into the traveller lifestyle.
‘I’d just started nursery school in Cornwall. Suddenly I was travelling the country with Mum and her boyfriend Buster,’ recalls Jordan.
‘Kids are very adaptable, but it was such a shock I’ve blocked a lot of it out. I felt I didn’t fit in anywhere. The gipsy kids didn’t accept me because I was what they called a gorger — someone who just tags along. We’d live on sites where the loo would be the bushes.
‘I’d go to school for a few days. Then we’d be off to the next camp. My education really suffered.
‘I was so behind that kids called me Dumb Dumb. I hated school. I preferred to be on the camp playing with my air rifle or jumping in and out of abandoned cars.’
Charles had agreed to take a DNA test to prove whether or not he was indeed Jordan’s father, but sadly Julie failed to follow it up (Penrose Manor pictured)
He adds: ‘Gipsy life is very aggressive. There’d be cockerel fighting in the evenings where Buster and his mates would set
