History fills the streets of Walton, a town in its own right until the end of the 19th century.
On Rice Lane, one local eatery is the last visible trace of an ambitious Victorian project.
Didi's Gate House Pizza, with five stars on Just Eat, has been a stable of local cuisine for years, but in 1884, it was the ticket booth of a vast zoo.
READ MORE: 39 amazing photos from the last time Liverpool won the League Cup a decade ago
Opened more than half a century after the first Liverpool's first zoo opened off West Derby Road, and 19 years after it closed, Liverpool Zoological Gardens occupied a 20-acre site now home to Sainsbury’s.
Its star attraction was apparently a chimpanzee called Pongo.
But the zoo, where some animals roamed free, was plagued with problems from the start.
At one point, a reward was offered for the return of two missing cockatoos.
The newly founded Liverpool Zoological Company was warned in 1883 that the £200,000 it proposed spending to develop the twenty acre site off Rice Lane on the project was insufficient, with elephants costing £1,000 each and lions £500.
By 1885, the zoo's management realised it was heading for dire straits and added extra incentives for visitors to come, including live entertainment, dancing, boats on a lake, and a fireworks display.
The zoo went into liquidation at the end of that year, and the Liverpool Mercury reported that a two day auction was held at the site, by order of the liquidator.
A pair of spotted leopards were sold for £62 and 10 shillings, a spotted hyena was snapped up for £8, and a 6,000-year-old Peruvian mummy was also sold.
The land itself was sold for just £20,000.
All that remains of the zoo is the old ticket booth now home to Didi’s Gate House Pizza.
