Do not adjust your television sets! January 2023 marks a new era in Coronation Street history as the fabled Weatherfield Precinct arrives on our screen. It's an exciting new piece of Corrie's history, I’m sure you’ll agree. As the show enters its 63rd year, how brilliant it is to start this new year with such an exciting new development!
As you may have seen from recent tweets, the Coronation Street Blog was invited to the grand opening of this new set at the beginning of December. With an abundance of Weatherfield Precinct images on my new smartphone and that weird Christmas / New Year break, I thought to share some exclusive behind-the-scenes pictures with you lot!
Sit back, get a brew, maybe even a peace cake, and enjoy our behind-the-scenes photos, facts, unseen bits, and exclusive cast chat!
Welcome to Weatherfield Precinct!
My Weatherfield Precinct story starts on November 16th of 2022, with an email from our editor Glenda, asking me to 'save the date’ for this top-secret studio visit/press event. I was standing having a vape outside work, so I managed to keep my excitement top-secret, although I still couldn't believe it. I did the fan Corrie Tour experience in April - they showed us where the new set extension would be (that itself was no secret) It was essentially a building-site-come-car park with little evidence of any building work or construction in progress. Fast-forward 8 months, and I’m heading out to see the completed set as a media guest of my all-time favourite TV show - lucky or what?
December 1st was soon upon me, and I met fellow Corrie blogger Sophie Williams, and eastieoakes writer Darren Hilbert, outside Manchester's ITV Corrie studios to see this exclusive launch. When the clock struck 12 we were ready to enter the world of Weatherfield. With no idea of where we were going, we were soon on the set of Weatherfield Police station inside the set itself! for a quick brew before heading outside to the precinct's grand opening.
If you are unsure of the studio / Weatherfield world layout, check out this map made by Corrie blog contributor Ben @gaddasisbadass showing the precinct location;
WEATHERFIELD POLICE STATION
This blog post is about the Weatherfield Precinct but I thought I’d post these to give you an idea of the incredible attention to detail behind the scenes. I guess, in this HD era, they need to, but still ridiculously realistic. I also bought a new smartphone for the occasion so it would be rude not to!
I took these images in the cop shop. (L) is front desk (R) is the sign inside the main door
The staircase we see in the police station is real, and rather than it leading to a jail setting, it actually leads up to the Chariot Square hotel set, where various cast interviews took place during this day. Stood outside the cop Shop for a vape break, we saw David Platt walk past, said hello to Daniel Osbourne, and I gawped at the gorgeous Daisy Midgeley (she is tiny!) before we headed upstairs to the hotel set to interview Ty and Fiz about the wedding build-up! No photos are allowed on that set but we did meet Alan and Jennie (who play the newlyweds) who walked on set, just as Sophie and I stood at the door, which was surreal!
Should you fancy, you can read that interview here
THE GRAND OPENING
Before the grand opening, a few cast members (who were available for interviews on the new set) assembled and walked over before we visitors were ushered around. Dev must have been busy filming, we didn't get a chat with him, but still great to see one of my favourite cast members in real life! Was he looking at me taking this shot? I guess we will never know!
Should you want to see my video of this moment, click this link On a re-watch, you can see Sally Dynevor (Sally Metcalfe) being interviewed over my shoulder!
You can see from the photo above that this is a two-storey building built using the steelwork on the back of the Victoria Street set. All were built without interrupting filming, and the shop windows, doors, and businesses were made offsite in the construction workshop and fitted onsite. Several props on this new set are from the prop stores and may have been featured in older episodes filmed on the original Granada Studios lot! It's one of several environmentally sustainable tricks the team used to build the set. I've got a few more nuggets like that are still to come - do read on;
To read more about the construction of Weatherfield Precinct - click this link
To watch an exclusive Corrie Blog youtube video from the balcony (at the press day) - click this link
THE BALCONY
The shops are an exciting development in themself, but discovering there’s a block of maisonettes above them, was another real highlight of this set visit. The balcony steps which lead to them were repurposed from the original Underworld factory set and reclad in black slips. The flats themselves do look ‘lived in’ which suggests to me that we either (a) will have one or two of our characters moving in, and/or, (b) some new characters could be introduced. The balcony is easily accessible for filming, and we had a good walk around it, so I expect some panoramic camera shots from that height advantage! The maisonettes have a front entrance that looks like this;
THE SHOPS
Rutlands Bakery
You can just see the bakery, which sits to the right of the upper-storey entrance door, in the image above. This is one of the shops that are just a frontage, and the treats in the window looked good enough to eat (spoiler alert - they aren't real - this is to avoid food waste).
Pound Outlet - Just a frontage to this shop but there looks to be a small and accessible front door, which I didn't try to access, that could certainly fool viewers. A pound outlet certainly fits in with the current economic climate. I imagine Ches and Gemma visiting here with Bernie.
Peking Order
Also worth noting (although not mentioned in the press release) is that we have this takeaway sitting next to this discount shop. Maybe it’s a takeaway that closed, as the ‘R’ has fallen off the shop sign and the pound shop is using the shopfront for stock space! I imagine this is the set equivalent of ‘Tattoo'll Do Nicely’ it's seen but not mentioned.
That attention to detail is what does it for me. I can't reiterate that enough, alongside the use of such a small space -it's TV magic!
Sweety Nuff - My second favourite shop on this new set. This particular set is accessible and open (just like Prima Doner on Victoria Street), and we sat outside it for a photo opportunity. Also worth mentioning here is ‘Claude’ the ice cream-loving french bulldog (left-hand side of the shop entrance) who was specially commissioned and made just for the show! Again, the sweet treats in the window do look real, but they are not.
Bargainanza Pawnbrokers (r/h side of the charity shop)
Do you remember Barlow’s Buys from a few years ago? Maybe Tracy could have a hand in this new shop? I'm guessing Daisy’s stolen engagement ring will turn up here? This particular shop seems to be a facade, but, the charity shop, and Sweety Nuff, are accessible so I guess we will have a few exciting camera shots to look forward to and maybe a few new sets on the show. I think this shop is just a facade too, but don't quote me on that! You can also see the lighting here, which I sure will help with night shoots!
Gregory Pope Foundation Charity Shop - This is a wonderful-looking addition to the show, and as someone who regularly frequents charity shops, I can tell you that this is my favourite and it looks very realistic. We very nearly hit the Corrie fourth wall at one point, as I spotted a novel by Jonathan Harvey, on the book stand outside.
As we know, Jonathan is a writer for the show! A deliberate set design joke, or not, I found that very funny. Let's keep an eye out to see if we can spot it on the show! Corrie did tell us that Evelyn and Roy shall be volunteering here, so I would guess this is the shop that makes its screen debut first.
