First bananas go on sale in London in the shop window of Thomas Johnson’s apothecary

First bananas go on sale in London in the shop window of Thomas Johnson’s apothecary

Bananas made their London Debut on 10th April 1633, in the shop window of shopkeeper Thomas Johnson.
Thomas Johnson had a herbalist shop on Snow Hill in the neighbourhood thats still called Holborn.
He hung up the bananas, which were from Bermuda, both to ripen them and to display them.

Johnson described the fruit as ~
“the bigness of a large beane…
They hang with their heads down, but if you turn them up, they look like a boat”.

Many believe this was the first time bananas were seen in London, however, archaeologists now dispute that this was indeed the first time.
In June 1999, archaeologists working on the south bank of the Thames were excavating a soggy rubbish heap dating back to Tudor times.
They found a banana skin, black and shrivelled, that dated back to about 1560.
This suggests the Tudors may have been snacking on them a century before Johnson added them to his window display…..

Despite both these early starts, bananas weren’t regularly available until the 1800s, when they came from Madeira.
They were considered a great novelty and luxury.