M10| Friday, August 2, 2019 THE WALL STREET JOURNAL.
Mary’s Church, close to his family
home in Rotherhithe, East London.
Mayflower, meanwhile, had been
docked on the mud flats of the
River Thames since its return from
the New World, where it fell into
disrepair. In 1624, British records
show that Jones’ widow Josian,
along with three other co-ownersMANSION
modern interiors.”
The result is marble flooring,
white walls, a kitchen featuring
black, gray and steel, and an
open-plan layout on the ground
floor, where there are no doors.
Rooms are separated by squared-
off archways.
The home has the feel of an art
gallery; large paintings adorn the
walls. “It is a very light, very
tranquil house,” said Mr. Knap-
field, who points out that al-
though he uses the new basement
to store cars, it could be used as a
gallery, a spa, or to house a swim-
ming pool.
The Mayflower Barn, with its
magnificent beams, was in reason-
ably good shape when Mr. Knap-
field bought the property. Its tiled
roof and the blackened elm
boards with which it is clad
needed some repairs, but other-
wise it has been left as another
blank canvas that could be con-
verted into more living, event or
gallery space. Mr. Knapfield is
currently using it to store cars.
A timber door, heavily en-
graved with floral motifs, stands
in the corner of the barn today.
Originally discovered in the main
house, the door is reputed to have
once hung in the captain’s cabin
on Mayflower.
ThefateofMayflowerafterit
returned to London in 1621 has
never been formally verified but
experts believe it was broken up
following the death of its captain,
Christopher Jones, in 1622. The
historian Rendel Harris was
among those convinced that the
barn at Old Jordans was built us-
ing its reclaimed timbers. His
1920 book, “The Last of the May-
flower,” traced the fate of the ship
to a ship-breakers’ yard in Rother-
hithe, East London, from where it
was purchased to build the May-
flower Barn in the 1620s.
Knapfield first put the house
on the market in 2016. But a sale
fell through, and he decided to
hold on to it for a few years, mak-
ing use of it to store his car col-
lection and as an office from
which to run his business. His
own home is in the nearby village
of Coleshill, 5 miles away. He has
now been given permission to
build garaging for his roughly 40
cars at home. With his fleet taken
care of, Old Jordans has been
listed again.
A home of this scale takes
some help to run. Currently there
is a daily housekeeper and gar-
dener. But Mr. Knapfield said the
property has been designed to be
as low maintenance as possible.
The backyard, for instance, has an
automatic irrigation system, and
established shrubs and trees
planted in beds which have been
mulched to minimize weeding.
Indoor gadgetry includes a car
elevator, CCTV security, and a mu-
sic system. These high-tech fea-
tures coexist with the homes re-
maining original features, notably
a monumental bread oven, ingle-
nook fireplace, and sections of
brick wall.
But there was one original fea-
ture that couldn't be integrated
into this new phase in the life of
Old Jordans.
During the English Civil War
(1642 to 1651), Christians who had
broken away from the Church of
England suffered violent persecu-
tion. The sympathetic owners of
Old Jordans allowed Quakers flee-
ing from oppression to hide in a
secret vaulted room beneath the
house’s original foundations. “It is
still there but unfortunately the
entrance was this little trap door
and it was so dangerous that we
had to cover it over with grass,”
said Mr. Knapfield.For many Americans, the story
of Mayflower ends in 1620 when
its exhausted passengers and crew
arrived at what was then called
“New Plimouth,” on the coast of
what is now Massachusetts.
But the following spring, Captain
Christopher Jones and his surviving
crew turned the ship around and
sailed for London. They arrived
home on May 5, 1621, according to
American historian Nathaniel
Philbrick’s 2006 history, “May-
flower: A Story of Courage, Com-
munity and War.”
Captain Jones returned to work.
However, weakened by the rigors
of the voyage to North America
and the winter he and the crew
spent there, which killed half his
crew, he died in March 1622 at
GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTOaround 52. He was buried in St
At the main
house, from
top, the
kitchen, rear
facade, and
master
bedroom. The
home’s original
fireplace, below
left, and rear
gardens, below
right. The lot
next door to
Old Jordans is
the site of the
oldest Quaker
burial ground
in England.THE TRIP BACK
Paul Knapfield, above, spent seven years renovating Old Jordans. He uses
the basement to garage his collection of racing and classic cars.ASliceof
America
Penn, the wealthy Quaker colonist
who established Pennsylvania.
Unfortunately for the visitors,
Old Jordans is no longer open to
the public. After a multimillion-
dollar renovation completed in
2015, the property is now a pri-
vate residence. It’s listed for
$18.44 million with estate agents
Knight Frank.
The 10-bedroom, 10-bathroom,
14,616-square-foot main house has
been rebuilt—its historic facades
restored and its interiors reimag-
ined in an ultramodern style.
A new double-height basement
was dug beneath the property to
house Mr. Knapfield’s collection of
about three dozen classic and rac-
ing cars, which include two Pen-
ske racing cars from the 1970s
and a 1948 Talbot-Lago.
Its roughly 6 acres of grounds
feature lawns, gardens, and even a
water-purified bathing pond where one can swim
among water lilies. In addition to the Mayflower
Barn, the property has five other renovated barns
and cottages which bring the total floor space of Old
Jordans up to 21,464 square feet and adds 11 more
bedrooms into the mix.
Mr. Knapfield, 70, is a diamond dealer turned
property developer and his company, Rivercrest De-
velopments, bought Old Jordans back in 2006, pay-
ing a reported $2.274 million. Before his purchase, it
had been owned by the Quaker church for around
400 years. The Quakers used it as a hostel, subdivid-
ing it into numerous tiny bedrooms and bathrooms.
“It was all a bit sad,” said Mr. Knapfield. “Nothing
in the house worked, and it looked ghastly, but I
thought its Mayflower heritage was super interesting.”
It took until 2008 to obtain building permits and
start work on the seven-year renovation which fin-
ished in 2015. Mr. Knapfield won’t reveal the cost of
the project, only saying that “millions” have been
lavished on the house. “These things are a bit of a
labor of love,” he said.
Much of the work centered on the main house.
Originally, the 17th century farmhouse would have
been modest in size, but it had been extended nu-
merous times, most recently in the 1960s.
“We came up with a contrasting, modern way of
keeping the square footage without pastiche,” said
Mr. Knapfield. He replaced the additions with two
“glass boxes,” he said. “Rather than trying to add
fake period character, which isn’t our style, we de-
cided to go modern. I really love old buildings withContinued from page M1of Mayflower,
applied to the
High Court of
the Admiralty
for an appraisal
of the vessel.
The salable
items aboard,
excluding its
timbers, were
valued at £128
eight shillings
and fourpence
(around
£128.42 or
roughly
£32,000, about
$39,606, in to-
day’s money).
It was com-
mon for unre-
pairable vessels
to be broken up
for salvage. A
number of his-
torians, includ-
ing Rendel Har-
ris and Charles Edward Banks,
author of “The English Ancestry
and Homes of the Pilgrim Fathers,”
published in the 1920s, believe its
timbers were bought by the then-
owner of Old Jordans, farmer
Thomas Russell. He, they suggest,
used them to build the Mayflower
Barn the following year.The Mayflower Barn, above, and view of the timbers allegedly reclaimed from the original
Mayflower after it returned to England and was broken apart for scrap, below.VANESSA BERBERIAN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL (8)FOR SALE$18.44
MILLION