Lennon and Harrison Plaque at the Apple Boutique Site, Baker Street

The Apple Boutique plaque is a blue Heritage Foundation plaque at 94 Baker Street in Marylebone, London. Unveiled on 17 March 2013, it names John Lennon and George Harrison as having worked there. It marks where the Beatles ran their Apple shop from December 1967 to July 1968, though the original house has since been rebuilt.

Eight months of Apple on Baker Street

The Apple Boutique was one of the first businesses of the Beatles' Apple company. A launch party on 5 December 1967 was followed by the public opening two days later. Lennon's school friend Pete Shotton ran the shop with Jenny Boyd, the sister of Harrison's wife Pattie, and the stock ran to clothes by the design group The Fool, jewellery and imported goods.

The Fool also painted the outside. Their psychedelic mural covered the front in November 1967, and Westminster City Council objected to it. Between 15 and 18 May 1968 the facade was painted white, with the word Apple as its only decoration.

The shop never paid. It lost about £200,000, and theft by customers and staff was a known problem. When it shut on 31 July 1968 the Beatles gave the remaining stock away free rather than sell it off.

Two plaques, one address

The house at 94 Baker Street dated from about 1795. It was later pulled down and replaced by an office building; sources disagree on the date, giving either the early 1970s or 1974. So the plaque you see today is on a newer building standing on the shop's site.

The Heritage Foundation, not English Heritage, first put up a blue plaque to Lennon alone on 27 April 2003. On 17 March 2013 it was replaced by the current plaque, which adds Harrison. The Beatles Bible reported that Rod Davis, who played banjo in the Quarrymen, Lennon's first group, unveiled it.

Another Lennon plaque in Marylebone is at 34 Montagu Square.