Showing what is now ‘the biggest single television production site in the world’ - the 7.7 acre site in Trafford, MediaCityUK, is a TV phenomenon and home to the 400 plus people it takes to make a single episode of the nation’s favourite soap.
Now sixty years, 10190 episodes, sales to over 130 countries, tens of millions of viewers on - the programme's home is an impressive site standing proudly in the shadow of the cities of its birth with the Salford and Manchester skylines, and Pennine hills beyond.
It's also quite a home for a show where the original cast of just 12 were filmed in Studio 2 at Granada Television. Where one wooden set represented the street and the now infamous cobbles were painted onto the studio floor with actors pretending to 'step up' on to an imaginary kerb.
‘Corrie’ has been situated on the canalside at MediaCityUK since 2014. Further developments were completed in 2018 with the Victoria Street extension and another two studios, leading to a total of six dedicated studios for the programme.
The set you see today is the fifth interpretation of Coronation Street. For the first year of the programme’s life the interior scenes were filmed in Studio 2 at Granada, before moving to Studio 6 in year 2.
In 1967 the challenge of the train crashing off the viaduct took the production outside for the first time, this brought Granada to rent the cobbled railway yard outside the bonded Warehouse from British Rail, still part of the old Granada site.
The first external set was merely the previous wooden studio set which had been weather-proofed and erected against scaffolding down by the yard arches. Camera angles usually (but didn’t always!) disguised the fact that the houses had no roofs and no backs.
In early 1970 Coronation Street had moved from black and white to colour and the wooden set (now dilapidated in the Manchester weather) was replaced with a small brick built set.
The programme’s success continued to grow and grow causing the entire set to eventually be re-built in its current Quay Street location in 1981/2. The new ‘modern terraces’ were added at the end of 1989 after the removal of Mike Baldwin’s factory. Increased filming called for dedicated internal studio space and in 1993 internal scenes began to be filmed in Stage 1 (originally built for indoor bowling and boxing!) before an additional sound stage was built in 2002 on the site of the old Sherlock Homes set.
In 2014 Coronation Street moved to its new purpose built, state-of-the-art production centre, the lot has since been extended to include Victoria Street and the site is now home to six dedicated studios as opposed to the original four.
Glenda Young
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