A lost pet shop in Liverpool where a baboon "lived upstairs" is now a JD Wetherspoon.
For generations who grew up in the Liverpool, City Pets was a weird and wonderful place to visit. Later located in Roe Street in the city centre, it was once one of the oldest pet shops in the country and used to be a popular dumping ground for exotic animals from foreign shores.
Before the laws and regulations we have today, after months at sea, sailors are said to have returned home with "racoons, baboons and even alligators" - often to the disapproval of their wives - and inevitably the creatures ended up at City Pets. Edward Roberts ran the shop until he died in 1916 and the business stayed in the family, being passed down through the generations to his son George and then his sons Keith, Phil and Ray.
