#Blogmas – Coronation Street: The Tour

I’ve finally visited the UK’s most famous street. The end of this month (December) will see the closure of the Coronation Street Tour. With this in mind, I knew I needed to go before it closes so mum and I booked a day trip to Manchester to attend the tour.

I’m so glad we did. On Saturday 12th December, we woke up early to head to Manchester. Unfortunately the weather in Manchester was miserable – raining constantly. I’ve never seen the old Coronation Street Granada studios before so I didn’t know what to expect.

After showing our ticket and getting given a Coronation Street Tour pass to put around my neck, we were shown into the green room. We were sat down and stood in the room where the cast used to sit to learn their lines. Our tour guide was a lovely young lady, but it was very scripted and rushed. Unfortunately photography isn’t allowed on the inside sets, it’s just allowed on the main street outside.

Next we walked down the corridor which brought us to the dressing rooms of the Coronation Street stars. Some were quite fancy and others were basic. It was such a unique experience to see the dressing rooms. We were then taken to the Wardrobe and Makeup area. Some of the dresses were tiny! The guide explained to us how so many of the Corrie actresses are small in real life therefore their clothes are small sizes, but look larger on screen because a wide angle lens is used. We also got to see the wedding dresses of Carla, Tracey and Beth.

We were then taken into a room where we watched a Coronation Street highlights video cut down into 3 minutes. It was actually pretty emotional watching clips of Coronation Street over the years. Some bits I could remember from my childhood.

Seeing the inside sets was awesome. I loved Jack and Vera Duckworth’s home. All the home sets were so much smaller than I’d ever imagined! It was lovely seeing Rita’s Kabin, as the guide explained how all the cast used to eat the sweets so they ended up gluing the lids down.

Obviously, one of the highlights was getting to sit down in The Rovers. You get to have your photo taken behind the bar – although it was slightly awkward because the rest of the group are all stood around watching you as the guide takes the photo. We decided to buy our photo as we’ll never get to do this again. I wanted to remember it.

After the guide had shown us all the sets, the doors to the street opened as the Coronation Street theme tune played and we all walked onto the famous cobbles.

The whole set was so detailed, which really surprised me. The outside set was huge and much bigger than I thought it was going to be.

Underworld was exactly how I imagined it to be from the outside, but inside on the set – the room was actually pretty large. A lot of the machines and props had been moved over to the new studio but they’d left some Underworld props for tour purposes.

We had such a wonderful day, despite the rain. If you get chance to go to Coronation Street The Tour in the final weeks before it closes, I would really recommend it. If you’re a Corrie fan, like myself, you won’t regret it! We also got a cheeky selfie in the Coronation Street bus stop.