Coronation Street Tour

This is a very overdue blog but better late than never. Last year I went to Manchester for a couple of days and visited the Coronation Street Studio Tour. The tour was meant to finish in October but has proved so popular they’ve carried it on. The tour is of the old Coronation Street set at the old Granada Studios. The new set moved to Media City in early 2014.

The only tour I could get a place on was at 8pm. I would have loved to get a daytime one but I left it very late to book – if you are planning to go book well in advance. The weather was great when I got there but you go into the indoor studio first and by the time I got outside it was pouring with rain and dark so it doesn’t make for great photos.

As you go inside the building you watch a short video with some of the best moments of the street on it. Your tour guide brings you down the corridor with all the dressing rooms, most of them were locked though. Next was the make up room and wardrobe (including some of the outfits that the characters actually wore) – there are no photos because we weren’t allowed to take any in the building. What struck me most was how small it all was, you’d wonder how the cast and crew would fit in there at all.

You get to go inside the Rover’s Return and they’ll take your photo behind the bar, you have the option of buying it at the gift shop after the tour. Your tour guide will tell you stories about some of the happenings in the bar and also in the few other sets we saw which were Carla’s Flat and Gail McIntyre’s (Platt) house. It was so funny in the Platt house that the stairs don’t lead to anything so our guide was telling us when David or anyone goes upstairs they have to crouch at the top until filming the scene has finished. After our tour of the sets and some of the memorabilia we went out onto the cobbles.

It was great to walk down the same street that Ken Barlow, Bet Lynch and a whole host of others have walked down. You can’t go inside any of the buildings though but it’s still great to see them.

I’d recommend the tour to any Coronation Street fan, it’s well worth a visit and Manchester is a fantastic place too with loads to see and do even if you aren’t a football fan.

The rest of my photos from the Coronation Street tour are here. There is one more blog I have to do about my Manchester trip…it’s taken me long enough to do it! I also went on a 1940’s day when I was there.