Magical Manchester Tour

My sister, Pat Duke and I had plans to go from where we live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, to England on May 7th, 2005 for a couple of weeks to visit family, (we are from Folkestone in Kent).

Prior to this visit, I was visiting the Corrie.net guestbook - a frequent haunt of mine, as I am a huge fan of Coronation Street, having watched it since episode 1 back in December of 1960 when I was living in the UK, and there was a message there written by Roy Barraclough, who used to play Rovers landlord, Alec Gilroy.

The message seemed genuine enough, he said he had been checking out a few Corrie websites, including the Coronation Street Fun Pages, which is mine. I responded to his message, saying how thrilled I was to have an actual Coronation Street actor visiting my website, and asked if he still had any pull with Granada, as I would absolutely love to visit the set while on holiday there.

Well, Roy didn't reply, but Mark Llewellyn of the 'On The Air' magazine did. He told me he couldn't promise me a visit to the studios, although he would try to get me in, but offered us a tour of the various sites that Coronation Street has used when they film on location. This would be for an article in their magazine, to get the reaction of a couple of (ahem) Canadian Coronation Street fans, visiting so close to 'Mecca'. Pat and I talked it over, and decided to go for it, as we had never been to Manchester, and thought it might be fun.

However, I was determined to try very hard to get inside the studios, as I had always wanted to go, but they no longer allow visitors, so I knew I didn't stand much hope. Mark had told me to leave it to him, as he has contacts there, and would ask. He came back to me that although they hadn't said an outright 'No', it was unlikely, because the day we would be there was their busiest day for filming on the outdoor set, and would have to see how busy they were on the day we arrived.

Arriving in Manchester on May 8th, we got settled into our hotel, then went to explore. It was the anniversary of VE Day, and many celebrations were going on right across the country. We stumbled across an outdoor free stage with a band doing an excellent imitation of the Glen Miller orchestra, so stopped to listen to them for a while.

Had dinner in a Chinese restaurant, then headed back to the hotel to get a good night's sleep before our adventure the next morning. Didn't work though, I was too excited to sleep - oh the bags I would have under my eyes for the photos! :-(

Next morning, right on time, Mark and Peter arrived at the hotel to pick us up. First stop was St. Mary's Church where we were greeted by Reverend Hackett. What an amazing guy he is! His church is used often for various television programs, and he loves it! He even allowed the crew to dig up his garden at one time, of course they put it all back the way they found it, but there are not many who would have allowed them to do it!

He showed us where Karen and Steve had stood when they were married, where Karen got her own back on Tracy at Amy's christening, we got into quite a discussion about hair pulling and how they achieve it without ending up with bald spots! He showed us the staircase they had used for Brenda to take little Bethany up to the tower, and outside we saw the actual tower they had filmed for this. (Mind you, the staircase and the tower are not really connected!) I also got to stand in the pulpit where Fred Elliott had stood to make his speech at Claire and Ashley's wedding. Here are some church photos:

Awww how sad. This was little Billy's grave, and not even a headstone to mark it. Actually, Reverend Hackett told us that it had been used since then for a horror movie, with some horrible thing bursting out of it! He also told us that to get the shot with everyone looking down into the grave, the camera of course had to be below, so they rigged up a platform at a nearby quarry for everyone to stand on, and the camera man was down in the quarry while they peered down at him.

No, I wasn't praying over his grave, I was taking the picture on the left, while someone was taking one of me! Aren't they beautiful flowers? They were growing wild everywhere in the UK.

Right next door to St. Mary's is The Church Inn. Does it look familiar? Well when our couples go for a drive into the country to have lunch at a little cozy inn, this is where they go - about 10 minutes drive from Coronation Street! Mike took Alma here just before she died.

No, the street on the left isn't Coronation Street, but as you can see, there are still terraces just like it in Manchester. This one is Highfield Road, Langworthy.
Peter and Mark took us to Chimney Tops Park and we could see where they had shot that opening credits view of the rooftops and chimneys. Unfortunately, the houses above are now derelict and ready for demolition. This area is also in Langworthy.

This location is Platt Hall in Platt Fields, where Deirdre and Ken were recently married. We realised as we drove around that they must arrive at many character names by looking around Manchester. Martin probably got his surname from this place. Then there are the districts of Failsworth (Samantha) Middleton (Fiona), Broughton (Joe) Swinton (Alex) and Barlow Moor (Ken et al), plus Booth St (Jerry), Ford St (Norma), and Langton Close (Ray), to name a few.

The canal where Don Brennan took poor Alma for a swim, remember that? I believe it was not far from here that Samir Rachid was fatally attacked too.

Same canal I believe, but I think this is more towards the Salford Quays - or should we say the Weatherfield Quays?

The Lowry Centre, Salford Quays where we stopped for coffee. It's a beautiful building inside.

Entering the area where Mike Baldwin and Dev Alahan live. (Is Dev still there? I am not sure, but that is where he is in Canada)

Mark told us that a lot of this area was named after places in Canada. This street was called 'Winnipeg Quays' so of course I had to take a photo of that!

I think it was at the end of this little stretch of water that Steve proposed to Karen on his rented barge.

We were treated to lunch here. It is none other than The Old Grapes, owned by Liz Dawn (Vera Duckworth). I had heard that lots of the Corrie stars hang out here, but we didn't see anyone we recognised.

The walls in here are quite a 'Who's Who', showing Liz with various friends and colleagues. I found the photos fascinating.

Well, now you can say you have seen Liz Dawn's toilets! LOL!! Yes, they were clean!

It was about now that Mark and Peter seemed anxious to move on, and wanted us to stop taking photos of interesting places like toilets!

We walked around the corner, and there was Granada Studios. They said they would take us up to the security gate where the fans hang out hoping to see a star or two. They said we would at least get a glimpse of part of the Street from there. On the way to the gate, we saw the photos on the right against the building. Cast pictures going back to 1960

We reached the gate - and..............CLICK HERE

Here I am doing my Fred Elliott bit, except we haven't seen Claire & Ashley's wedding in Canada yet, so didn't know what he said. So covered all the bases by just reading every line in the bible twice - Ah said ah read 'em a second time!

I don't remember seeing that feather thing in the foreground, I wonder what it was? It is far too long to be a quill pen, how strange that I don't remember it being there at the time!