Some 245 households and 700 residents are served by a nursery, primary school, youth hostel, village hall and community shop.

Forty of the houses and cottages and 21 flats are owned by a non-profit society that manages the village and its amenities.

It has been suggested that the name comes from some connection with a manorial family of Jourdemain... but a more probable origin is in an early owner or occupant called Jordan.

It has one of the oldest Friends meeting houses in the country, whose cemetery is the burial place of William Penn, founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, Isaac Pennington, as well as other notable Quakers.

It suffered a serious fire on 10 March 2005, when the later extension was virtually destroyed and the roof of the original 17th-century meeting room severely damaged.

Part of the present farmhouse was already there and Thomas Russell added to it in 1624, also building a substantial new barn with timbers from a ship.

[3][4] A piece of the timber was taken from the Mayflower Barn, placed in the Peace Arch built by Sam Hill and opened in September 1921.

Besides the completion of the Pacific highway from the Canadian boundary to Mexico, the arch also marked a century of peace between the United States and the UK.

It is subsidized by a voluntary Shop Amenity Charge of £5 or £10 per month paid by about half the households in the village.