Coronation Street Blog: Exploring Weatherfield: The real Coronation Street

Salford Lads Club, as it was yesterday.

It's been over a month now since I shared my experience of living in Salfor...ahem, Weatherfield with you all. I received a number of marvellous comments on social media, and for that I'm extremely thankful - especially to those who wished me well with coursework and my new home. If you missed my blog post you can catch up here.

I briefly mention in the post about the set being adjacent to my university and that there's a plethora of real world locations from the Corrie universe surrounding me. I've now decided to go exploring around town to see if there's any gems I can share with you all. I have no clue how many of these posts I'll actually do, or when I'll post them, but do expect another.

...captured on a Polaroid too.

Yesterday I set out on a brisk twenty minute walk to somewhere I have wanted to visit for an awfully long time. As any fan of classic 80s band The Smiths will know, Salford Lads Club featured on the inside cover of their 1986 LP The Queen is Dead, and is a must visit location if you just so happen to be in the area. It just so happens to be on a real life Coronation Street too.

The Smiths outside of the club in 1985.

Apart from being an absolute tourist with my friend outside of the iconic building (I'll spare you the pain of looking at those particular Polaroid photos), the little Corrie fan inside of me new that The Queen is Dead wasn't the only album cover to feature the real Coronation Street in Salford.

Back in 1973, Barbara Knox (or Mullaney as she was known then) decided to cash in on her newfound fame as Corrie's redheaded Rita, and release an album of her own. On The Street Where I Live was shunned by Granada execs and Barbara wasn't allowed to promote the record otherwise she would have been written out of her contract. Due to the lack of promotion very few copies were sold, but you can listen to the first track on the album above thanks to a YouTube uploader. Granada also prevented her taking photographs on the Grape Street set for use on the LP cover, so label Phillips turned to Salford's own Coronation Street.

...and here's a comparison between 1973 and yesterday. As you can see the terraced houses in the foreground are long gone and have been replaced by much more modern builds. That lamppost has also been lost in the swamps of time.