A struggling care worker has inherited one of Britain’s finest country estates after a DNA test proved that he was the illegitimate son of the troubled recluse who lived there.
Jordan Adlard Rogers found out at the age of eight that Charles Rogers, who lived on the sprawling, 1,536-acre National Trust Penrose Estate, near Porthleven in Cornwall, might be his real father. Mr Rogers, a drug addict, refused to take the test, however, although Mr Adlard Rogers made several attempts to contact him.
Instead of growing up in the grand, grade II listed farmhouse, Mr Adlard Rogers, 31, became a community support worker, living in the town of Helston with his girlfriend Kate and son while trying to make ends meet. After Mr Rogers was found dead in his car in August last year at the age of 62, however, a test was carried out and confirmed that they were related.
Now Mr Adlard Rogers has left his job and moved into the estate, immersing himself in his newfound wealth and family history, building a gym in the grounds for his weight-lifting equipment and posting photos of the house and a Mercedes on Instagram.
He wrote: “[Charles] offered to do a DNA test when I was younger but it didn’t happen and then when I was 18 I knocked on his door and asked if I could have the test and he told me to do it through the solicitors. I wrote more letters in my twenties but never got a reply. I wrote one final letter with a DNA test kit enclosed and that was when Philip [Care, the estate manager] rang and told me Charles was dead.”
An inquest later ruled that Charles Rogers, who had suffered from drug addiction for 40 years, had died from an overdose of a heroin substitute.
Mr Care, a land agent and auctioneer who has managed the estate for more than 20 years, told the inquest in Truro that in the months leading up to his death Mr Rogers had become malnourished, refused to change his clothes and had been sleeping in his car. “Charles had become incapable of doing anything that was at all stressful,” he said. “He wouldn’t pay his bills and although we were there to help him manage his affairs he just ignored anything and post was just burnt.”
Mr Adlard Rogers said: “People say I’m lucky but I would trade anything to be able to go back and for Charles to know I was his son. Maybe then he might have taken a different path. There was always a pressure on him trying to match expectation . . . He was under huge pressure taking it on, but he was different and a free spirit.
“Charles served in the Army in Northern Ireland and I think this affected him greatly, along with the death of his brother Nigel from cancer, who he was very close to.”
The estate was bought by the Rogers family in 1771 and the descendants have lived in Penrose House and the estate’s other properties ever since. Charles had inherited the estate after his father, Lieutenant Commander John Peverell Rogers, died in 2012.
The Rogers family gave the estate to the National Trust in 1974 in exchange for a 1,000-year lease to stay there.
Mr Adlard Rogers said: “I don’t need to work anymore so want to set up a charity and help the Porthleven and Helston communities. I’ve been at the point of worrying about the next bill and have had a tough start in life but now I’m here I want to help people. I’m not going to forget where I’ve come from.”
Author: Alice Hutton
Title: Care worker inherits Penrose Estate after DNA test
Source: https://bit.ly/306qyny
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