1982: "At Last We Had A Real Street"

Daily Mirror, 22/2/1982 - Hilda (Jean Alexander) takes a look at Number 13 as work on the new exterior set progresses.

The 5th of May 1982 saw the Queen visiting the new exterior set of Coronation Street with the Duke of Edinburgh. Work had begun on the set in the November of 1981, and the new set was an impressive sight to behold - making the old exterior facade look positively ridiculous.

An invitation to the 1982 Royal tour of the new Coronation Street exterior set for Peter Tonkinson, story-line writer.

Here's how HV Kershaw, the man who oversaw the building of the old exterior brick facade in late 1969, wrote about the 1982 innovation in his book, The Street Where I Live (1985 edition):

Construction took 49,000 old bricks and 6,500 roof slates, reclaimed from demolition sites in South East Lancashire. The viaduct needed a further 29,000 bricks and to provide an authentic finish special black mortar had been used, mixed to the original Victorian specification using an ash ingredient. TV aerials and chimneys sprouted where none had been before. At last we had a real street.

The Queen and Prince Phillip stroll the famous cobbles.