Penny Lane Road sign, Road sign tourist attraction in Liverpool, United Kingdom
The Penny Lane Road Sign is a road sign in the Mossley Hill suburb of Liverpool that draws visitors from around the world as a tourist attraction. It marks the start of the real Penny Lane street, which runs from a small roundabout at the junction of Smithdown Place and Church Road southward through the neighborhood.
The name Penny Lane appears on records going back at least to the early 1800s, and its origin remains debated: it may come from a one-penny toll, a local landowner, or an 18th-century ship owner named James Penny. By the late 1800s, the roundabout at the end of the street had become a busy hub for buses and trams, and it was there that Paul McCartney and John Lennon regularly met as teenagers before heading into the city center.
The Penny Lane road sign is one of the most photographed spots in Liverpool, because the street name became world-famous through the Paul McCartney song of the same name. The original signs were stolen so often that the city now paints the name directly on walls or mounts signs high up to keep them in place.
The sign is in a regular residential area and is easy to visit on foot during the day. It works well as part of a wider tour of nearby Beatles sites, since Forthlin Road, Mendips, and Strawberry Field are all within a short distance.
One original Penny Lane sign stolen in 1976 by a group of students resurfaced decades later when an anonymous former student returned it to The Beatles Story museum. That sign is considered the oldest of its kind to have made its way back to Liverpool.
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