Costa-nation Street!
IT’S enough to have Ena Sharples spinning in her grave.
Coronation Street bosses yesterday unveiled a new extended set featuring a tattoo parlour, a snooker hall and a Costa Coffee.
For years the area surrounding the terraced houses and cobbles existed only in the viewers’ imagination. But from May viewers will be able to see life beyond Britain’s most famous street.
Victoria Street, which has been 18 months in the planning and took eight months to build, has been “aged” to make it look as though it has been there for as long as Coronation Street. Cobbles from the set that was home to the street from 1982 to 2013 have been used to create the road. As well as Tattoo’ll Do Nicely, Costa Coffee and the Weatherfield snooker hall, the new set features a Co-op supermarket, a Pakistani takeaway called Speed Daal, Weatherfield North Tram station, an estate agent, an urban garden and Weatherfield police station.
Unveiling the extension yesterday, producer Kate Oates said: “When the show went to six episodes a week we knew a bigger set would give us bigger scope.”
Pride of place in the urban garden is a memorial bench to Coronation Street superfan Martyn Hett and the 21 other victims who lost their lives in the Manchester Arena bombing last year. Martyn’s family were the first people to see the new set last week and were present at yesterday’s official unveiling. Sue Nicholls, who plays Audrey Roberts, cut the ribbon. She said: “I’m so sad not to have met Martyn. I can’t think of anything that I love more on this new set than the memorial bench. It’s beautiful and he deserves it, bless him.”
When Coronation Street began in 1960, the set was built inside the Granada studios, with its famous cobbles and pavement painted on the studio floor.
It would be another eight years before real cobblestones came to Weatherfield, with the first exterior set which also included a railway viaduct and a wooden studio set. In 1970, a bricks-and-mortar set replaced the wooden one. The Rovers Return pub and the famous backyards were then added.
Neighbouring Rosamund Street was seen for the first time in 1982, when a new, completely brick, set was built. It was opened by the Queen and Prince Philip.
In 1999 the exterior set was again extended, showing a glimpse of Victoria Street.
The last scenes were shot there in December 2013 and in January 2014 filming began in new studios at MediaCityUK in Salford.