Buckingham Palace: Black Welsh gardener's rose planted

The yellow rose for John Ystumllyn is now in full bloom, and on show at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in London

A rose named after one of Britain's first black gardeners has been planted in Buckingham Palace.

It honours John Ystumllyn, who was abducted in western Africa in the 18th Century, to be raised in north Wales.

The ceremony in the palace rose garden was watched by members of community garden projects, who received the roses as gifts to plant.

The yellow bloom is also on display at the RHS Chelsea Flower show this week for the first time.

The campaign to have the rose bred was led by Zehra Zaidi, who founded the group We Too Built Britain, which tells stories about under-represented people across the country.

Zehra Zaidi (left) with Claire Midgely-Adams, deputy gardens manager for Buckingham Palace

"Lockdown and the pandemic showed us the importance of community and the restorative power of nature," said Ms Zaidi, who spent her childhood growing up in Carmarthenshire, before becoming a civil rights lawyer.

"There is something magical and grounding about planting something in the land, it connects you to the land, and doing it communally, connects you to each other."

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John Ystumllyn was snatched from Africa as a boy and brought to Wales

Who was John Ystumllyn?

While the sight of a black individual in 18th Century Wales was not unheard of, it was out of the ordinary.

Britain was engaged at this time in the trans-Atlantic slave trade, but more often than not, the vast majority of people enslaved were transported from Africa to the Caribbean.

However, some aristocratic families considered black servants to be fashionable, and that is almost certainly how a young John Ystumllyn arrived at a country estate in Gwynedd.

His image was captured on a small oil painting on wood, in a portrait dated 1754.

A poem on his grave in the churchyard at Ynyscynhaearn near Cricieth recounts how he was taken to Wales, though misplaces his home as India - thought, perhaps, to be a reference to the West Indies.

The rose was bred by Harkness Roses in Hertfordshire, which is also responsible for a rose named after and selected by the Queen to mark her Platinum Jubilee.

Managing director David White said the country had been through a divisive period, and the community garden schemes with John Ystumllyn roses was a way to help.

"After the last few years of the pandemic, and the struggles people face with the cost of living crisis, we need to focus on our collective healing and mental health," he said.

"We hope our scheme goes some way to supporting people and bringing communal joy and togetherness."

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