Mayflower Barn

The Mayflower Barn is situated on the edge of the Chiltern hills in the South Buckinghamshire countryside about midway between London and Oxford is the small village (and associated farmstead) of Jordans.

The name of the farm appears to date back into the late Middle Ages when some long-forgotten Jordan or Jourdain farmed the area. The known history of the farm begins in 1618 when Thomas Russell bought it. Part of the present farmhouse was already there, and Thomas Russell added on to it in 1624. And at the same time, he built a substantial new main barn with timbers from a ship called the "Mayflower", purchased from a shipbreaker's yard in Rotherhithe. In the 1920s the antiquarian J. Rendel Harris, famous for his discovery of the Syriac 'Odes of Solomon', concluded after meticulous research that the Barn was built with the timbers of the very same "Mayflower" that carried the Pilgrim Fathers from Plymouth to New England (there have been reported to have been as many as 37 "Mayflowers" plying the oceans at that time). This claim has been subject to much debate up to the present day. What is unquestionable is that ship's timbers of that era were used for the construction — if one looks into the roof beams of the old barn, one can see the clear shape of a ship's keel. As one looks more closely, one of the beams bears the outline of the letter M and the middle beam of the section is cracked, as that on the "Mayflower" has been described as being.

In the interests of balance it should be noted that J. Rendel Harris was a prominent Quaker, and in the 1920s the farmstead of Jordans was undergoing an interesting social experiment. A group of Quakers had bought the Jordans farm in 1911. In 1919, they established a planned village to be built by Quakers and other conscientious objectors to war. The village was to be self-owning and self-supporting. They established Jordans Village Industries, which produced handmade furniture. The furniture was too expensive for the market, and the enterprise was quickly failing (which resulted in the company going bankrupt in 1924). The newfound fame of Jordans as the location of the final resting place of the timbers of the "Mayflower" could not have been more opportune for the fledgeling community as an influx in tourists provided the group with a much needed kick start in establishing the settlement.

Whether the story is true or not, and the appellation of the "Mayflower Barn" is known locally to date back centuries, well before J. Rendel Harris's investigations, the barn is a beautiful building situated in a tranquil setting, and today the well preserved structure is a major tourist attraction, receiving many visitors each year from all over the world and particularly from the Americas.

* [http://www.lady.co.uk/ed_showarticle.cfm?issue=/0505arta.cfm&relocated=yes THE CHARM OF THE CHILTERNS]
* [http://www.englandschristianheritage.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=36 Buckinghamshire Guide]