Look across the High Street at the impressive brick facade of The Lamb, with its archway leading to a yard and beer garden at the back. Often described as a 'Georgian coaching inn', the present building dates, in fact, from the 1850s. Although Baines's Lancashire Directory of 1825 lists the Lamb - together with the Coffee House and the Thatched House Tavern - it seems that the pub at that time was relatively small.

The brick archway of the present Lamb was not used for stage-coaches to pass through, but for William Dilworth's horse-drawn omnibuses which plied between Wavertree and the centre of Liverpool. Bus travel in those days was for the wealthy few. The single fare is said to have been 6d (6 old pence), which was well out of the reach of ordinary people.

In the days when many people were unable to read, pubs often took their name from an easily-recognisable symbol which could be displayed outside. Thus, in the early nineteenth century, township meetings in Wavertree were advertised as taking place 'at the Sign of the Lamb'. Nowadays there are other considerations, like brand image and corporate identity. In 1996 Allied Domecq, the owners of The Lamb, proposed to change its name to the Ferry & Firkin, following its transfer to their Firkin Brewery Co. subsidiary. Eventually - after protests by the Wavertree Society and others - the company agreed to allow the traditional name to remain on the front of the building. The new 'sub-title' is the Fold (as in sheep-fold) & Firkin: rather more relevant than the three-mile distant Ferry 'cross the Mersey!