The Coronation Street District - Weatherfield, 1961

TV Times celebrated a year of Coronation Street in 1961, with a series of articles and illustrations. The above pic is an aerial view of the Coronation Street neighbourhood in 1961. Of course, it differs from what we might expect. Arkwright Street, family home of that upwardly mobile little madam Sally Seddon in the 1980s, hadn't been invented, there was a cinema just round the corner, and St Mary's Church was just opposite the corner of Coronation Street! Rather like St Clement's Church was opposite the corner of Archie Street, the street which provided inspiration for Corrie's architecture. A further attempt to depict the neighbourhood in a 1976 TV Times also had its problems as it moved Len Fairclough's yard out of Mawdsley Street! But then mistakes happen and in recent years soap history is often rewritten anyway.

I love the map above - take a stroll round Weatherfield as it was then envisaged - call in at Gamma Garments - where Miss Nugent is no doubt admiring Mr Swindley's antimacassars, note the posh bay window at the side of the Rovers Return (Annie Walker must have been chuffed to little mint balls!), and do a shift at Elliston's Raincoat Factory, having a Corner Shop barm cake for your dinner break. But be warned - I'd avoid the vestry at the Mission Of Glad Tidings if I were you!