To step onto the famous cobbles of the Coronation Street set in Manchester U.K., fans pass through an “eight minutes of heaven” portal.
The highlights reel of 60-plus years of memorable scenes of pub brawls, fiery crashes and teary farewells had about 40 of us in the small theatre at the start of the Coronation Street Experience tour laughing, gasping and sighing with nostalgia.
When the lights came up, guide David Owen told us we were already on the set as he led us down a hall that often appears as Weatherfield General Hospital.
The real magic was beyond the double doors at the end of the corridor, where we walked outside and into six decades of television history. Coronation Street turns 65 in December. It was crowned the world’s longest-running TV soap by Guinness World Records in 2010. Turning 65 may be a Canadian milestone, but it has little significance in the U.K., where the official retirement age is 66 and climbing.
Canadians started watching Corrie on regional CBC stations in Toronto and Ottawa in 1966. The show went national in 1981. Corrie fans are a loyal bunch. More than half a million Canadians watch on CBC or stream on CBC Gem. The show’s streaming numbers on CBC Gem are up 11 per cent, and the network still gets an earful from loyal viewers across the country when an installment is cancelled. One original cast member remains: William Roache, 93. Roache was on the debut broadcast on Dec. 9, 1960, and still plays egghead Romeo Ken Barlow. He has no plans to retire.
Getting to Manchester for a behind-the-scenes set tour is a bucket-list trip for many fans. It’s a rare opportunity to walk around much of the seven-and-a-half-acre working-set backlot, following in the footsteps of their favourite characters.
In TV land, nothing is what it seems. Ordinary buildings play different roles onscreen. Owen led us across a parking lot to a low-rise building that houses the show’s production offices, wardrobe department and cast dressing rooms. It doubles as the exterior of Weatherfield General Hospital and ambulance bays. The streetlights, hydro wires and trees we see around us all disappear with a few clicks of a mouse in post-production, he said.
We were reminded to stay with the group for the 90-minute tour and resist the temptation to leave our mark anywhere. Don’t write your name in the dust on one of the Streetcars taxi cabs. That dirt is the vehicle’s “costume.” And stay out of places with yellow police-style tape across them saying, “Dressed Set. Keep Out.” That means the area is ready for shooting the next morning.
We stopped at a two-storey cement-block wall, the backside of the terraced houses and famous businesses along Coronation Street. The buildings are false fronts. Interior scenes are filmed inside four massive soundproof soundstages to our right, where cameras and sound equipment can move easily around the open-plan sets. Except for special guests, these are off-limits to tours.
I was lucky enough to get a chance to walk around a soundstage with a show publicist and poke around the familiar homes of the Websters, the Metcalfes and the newly renovated Platt house, as well as the pub Rovers Return Inn and the Underworld knicker factory. I discovered the stairs the actors run up in the houses lead nowhere, stopping at the top with a red X of thick tape. I flipped through Kit’s record collection and admired Sally’s oven mitts.
It was a thrill to be on the streets and walk past the places I’d seen on TV for decades. Even the cobblestones beneath my feet were pieces of history, moved in 2014 from the show’s former Granada set in central Manchester to the current one at MediaCityUK in the suburb of Salford. I thought if these stones could talk, they’d be spilling juicy secrets.
Owen pointed out things we’d otherwise miss as we followed him around, like the door handles on the Weatherfield North tram station ticket office. They came from the old Rovers Return set at Granada Studios, he said. The police and paramedic uniforms worn by the cast are the genuine articles, kept locked in a secret location to avoid theft. And no, they don’t drink real beer at Rovers Return.
It’s a very small world when we started walking between landmarks, like the few steps it took to get from the shopping precinct – a playground and row of small stores with apartments above – to the Weatherfield Police Station.
“I’m going to bid you all congratulations. You’ve done a mile in about 20 seconds,” Owen said, explaining that’s the distance between the shops and the cop shop on paper. Unlike most of the buildings, the interior of the police station is a working set, with the Chariot Square Hotel lobby set upstairs.
We stopped at the familiar police station booking desk for photos. Never have people looked so happy to be arrested. The detectives’ bullpen office, tiny interview room and famous cell are here, too. With all the double-crossing, debauchery and bad decisions on the show, it’s easier to name a character who hasn’t been to jail.
Excited visitors scurried all over the street, taking photos outside the Trim Up North barbershop, the undertakers, Roy’s Rolls Café, Victoria Court apartments and Preston’s Petals flower shop. We could step inside kebab shop Prima Doner, which seemed smaller in real life, to read the menu and admire the displays of fake food.
Owen stopped at the builder’s yard, where Tina McIntyre was pushed to her death from the balcony in 2014 by evil Rob Donovan. He said actress Michelle Keegan did all her own stunts for the scene, landing on a blue crash mat below at the climax of the action. A teenager obligingly sprawled on the pavement for her mother to take a reenactment photo.
And then we were on Coronation Street, facing the Rovers Return Inn and the terraced houses where so many beloved characters lived, loved and, being Corrie, died.
Getting up close to Weatherfield businesses revealed the care the set designers take to create the world of the street. Small details you’d never notice on TV make these sets look impressively authentic. I read the menus for Speed Daal and the Viaduct Bistro, and spent several minutes going over the jammed notice board in the window at the Kabin newsagents. There was an appeal for a missing cat named Pebbles, a puss with a fondness for wearing hats. Spotting the read-all-about-it Weatherfield Gazette newsboy statue was like seeing an old friend.
I strolled down the narrow brick-walled alley, called a “ginnel,” that runs behind the houses and peered into backyards. If a character is planning some dark doings or stealing a kiss, this is where it happens. “Don’t go down there alone,” Owen joked. The Rover’s pub yard is also here.
Things were quiet at Underworld, the underwear maker that has managed to buck the overseas manufacturing trend with the help of gossiping knicker stitchers. I sat on the busted-up car seat outside Webster’s Auto Service next door and watched excited fans pose for professional keepsake photos taken outside the Rovers.
Canadian viewers often say they got hooked on Corrie by a U.K.-born relative who tuned in for a voice from home. I started watching in the mid-’80s, introduced by my English-born mother-in-law. But Coronation Street might not have even had a 65th to celebrate without a push from Toronto-born producer Harry Elton. He was working at Granada Television in Manchester in the late 1950s when he challenged fledgling writer Tony Warren to write a series based on everyday Northern people. Warren, who was born a few kilometres outside Manchester, drew from childhood memories of hiding under his grandmother’s table to eavesdrop on the women who dropped in for cups of tea and juicy gossip. The heart of the community was, and remains, the Rovers, where there’s been a succession of strong women in the role of owner-landlady.
My love of Corrie’s outlandish plotlines and British humour, paired with a decades-long career as a journalist, led to an unusual side hustle 12 years ago. I’m one of a small group of emcees who do onstage interviews with Coronation Street cast when they tour Canada. The shows are produced by Canadian Armed Forces veteran and retired registered nurse Andrew Stuckless, 62, of Halifax, who turned his fandom into a business with Stroll Promotions in 2005. He organizes twice-yearly cast tours in different areas of Canada.
I’ve seen Corrie fans from Newfoundland to British Columbia overcome with emotion when they meet their favourite actors. They bring homemade gifts and tell stories about how much the show means to them. Although I’ve worked with more than a dozen Coronation Street cast members over the years, stepping onto the cobblestones of the show set was an unmatched thrill.
Nottingham-born Debbie Streisslberger of Orangeville, Ont., started watching with her English-born mother, then did the same with her daughters from the time they were little. They’re now aged 38, 40 and 42. “I started watching and we’ve never missed an episode,” she said as she posed for a photo pulling a pint in the replica Rovers set at the Coronation Street Experience exhibit. “It was always like a taste of home kind of thing.”
The Canadian fondness for Corrie does not go unnoticed by the cast. They feel the same affection for us. Mikey North, who has played Gary Windass since 2008, has been to Canada several times with Stroll Promotions tours, most recently to British Columbia with fellow cast member Ryan Prescott, who plays Ryan Connor. The highlight for this “massive Toronto Maple Leafs fan” was seeing a home game a few years ago while on tour. The crowd cheered when he appeared on the Scotiabank Arena Jumbotron. “To fly across the world, get off the plane and be recognized by the customs officers at the airport, I’ll never forget the first time that happened,” North said at the studio during a break in filming. “It’s a testament to the show that it carries that far,” he said. “And you know, if anything, Canadians are probably more fanatical about the show than us Brits are.”
“I know whenever the Canadians have come over, they’re super, super excited, which is lovely,” said actor Jack P. Shepherd. He joined the cast as David Platt at age eight in 2000. Viewers have watched him grow up on Coronation Street.
Sally Dynevor is another long-serving cast member, playing the social-climbing Sally Webster for nearly 40 years. Her first encounter with Canadian fans was at a British Isles Show in Toronto 30 years ago. “I was really surprised. They were wonderful,” said Dynevor, who is just as sweet in real life as she appears onscreen. She paused our interview to ask if I’d like her to make me a cup of tea. “It was just so lovely, because we’re so far away, you don’t really think that anybody across the pond is watching,” she added.
There’s just one drawback to visiting the Coronation Street set. Canadian visitors return home to dozens of episodes waiting to reveal Weatherfield’s secrets on their PVRs. As they say on Corrie when there’s a long tale to be told, “best put the kettle on, luv.”
WHEN YOU GO
Advance bookings for the Coronation Street Experience are recommended. Tours run weekends and most public holidays when the cast is off, and they sell out quickly. Tickets cost about CA$70. Star tours that include a meet-and-greet for a photo with a mystery cast member are CA$100. MediaCityUK is a 25-minute ride by Metrolink tram from central Manchester.
CORONATION STREET EXHIBITION
The set tours include admission to the Coronation Street Exhibition, which opened in 2023. It has props and costumes, like Gemma Winter-Brown’s poofy tangerine wedding dress and Deirdre Barlow’s oversized glasses. Faithful replicas of Roy’s Rolls Café and the Rovers Return Inn pub sets, including the “last-call bell” rung by longtime landlady Bet Lynch, are popular photo-op stops. On weekdays, fans can visit the Coronation Street Exhibition for CA$14.
WHERE TO STAY IN MANCHESTER
Native Manchester, in the Ducie Street Warehouse, is a Michelin Guide-listed aparthotel with large, loft-like rooms with chic industrial vibes. It’s located a block from central Manchester Piccadilly railway station. Bonus: there’s in-room laundry, restaurant and a mini-cinema off the lobby.
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WHERE TO EAT IN MANCHESTER
Dishoom pays homage to the old Irani cafes of Bombay in a dining room that feels like a slice of history. Excellent South Asian cuisine turns to tradition for a new spin on Indian dishes.
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Contemporary Japanese meets modern Mexican at award-winning Peter Street Kitchen restaurant in the Edwardian Manchester Hotel, located in the historic former Free Trade Hall.
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GETTING THERE
Two Canadian tour companies help fans realize their Corrie set-visit dreams with next-level access.
Karen Murphy, owner of Kemptville Travel in Toronto, began running Coronation Street-themed tours in 1989. She packages behind-the-scenes Corrie soundstage set visits and cast meetups with tours in a European destination. This year, it was Wales. Fans range in age from teens to 80s.
Kim Monteith of Charlottetown started Coronation Travel in 2005. Her company leads an annual week-long tour to Manchester and neighbouring cities like historic York. Fans get special treatment, including cast meetups and a visit to the soundstage indoor sets. “Anybody who’s been watching, it’s part of their lives. They really associate with these characters,” Monteith says. “They invite them into their home every night at a certain time. They’re real in people’s perceptions. When they finally get the chance to be (on the set), it’s massive.”
Linda Barnard was a guest of Visit Manchester and VisitBritain.
