The New Houses, Kabin, Salon, Garage And Factory - Completed In 1989

In Coronation Street, it seemed that the building of the new side of the street began in September 1989 and most of the building work was completed before the end of the decade. We've been exploring that story-line recently, but Ian has recently studied all the relevant episodes and has written to tell us that, in reality, all the major building work on that side of the street began and ended in 1989.

I now have all the episodes from August 1989 to January 1990 and have been able to study the building of the new houses, the story-line time frame and the real time frame, bearing in mind that the show was recorded AT LEAST three to four weeks in advance. I've read your stuff on here, and would like to add my findings - made whilst studying the episodes concerned this week.

                       

On-screen, early December 1989 (recorded October/November): a teaser glimpse of what is now Audrey's salon.

On-screen, January 1990 - recorded November/December 1989 - Eddie Ramsden shins down a ladder - with what would become Gail and Martin's home in the background.

It was a great story because here was the Street undergoing immense change. New Exec Producer David Liddiment had decided to update the show in the summer of 1989 and had travelled around real Coronation Street terrace disticts where he saw modern houses and industrial units springing up beside the old houses. This seemed perfect for Coronation Street, with the show about to go three times a week, allowing much more story-line potential. In the story, the factory and community centre frontages were demolished in September 1989 (in reality, August 1989). That side of the Street was then boarded off and the production team teased us with very occasional glimpses of the new side of the Street going up.

In an episode broadcast on 1 December 1989 (recorded November) we were treated to an aerial view of the site with work in progress. In an episode transmitted on 11 December 1989 (recorded November), we glimpsed the nearly completed salon. In an episode broadcast on 1 January 1990 (recorded November or December 1989) we saw Steve McDonald drive a JCB from what is now the yard in front of the factory unit and garage into the Corner Shop window - and glimpsed part of the frontage of what is now Gail's house. In an episode broadcast on 8 January 1990 (recorded December 1989), Ken Barlow drove up the Street to visit Deirdre and we glimpsed the completed Kabin, waiting to have its windows put in (I think one was already there).

On-screen, January 1990 - recorded November/December 1989 - all over bar the shouting - the new side of the street.

The evidence points to the new side of the Street being built in reality from August to December 1989. In January 1990, teaser shots of the completed houses appeared in various magazines (in the story-line the finishing touches were being made) and in February 1990 Des and Steph Barnes moved in - the first new residents.

Thanks for that, Ian - I've received a few queries about the new houses and all now seems clear. It was a very ambitious project for the Street and I remember enjoying every moment as the girls struggled to get compensation for losing their jobs at the factory, the building site lads brawled in the Rovers, Alan Bradley used a job on the site to terrorise Rita and Tina Fowler became involved with labourer Eddie Ramsden. And I love the way we were "teased" with glimpses of what was being built.

The new side of the Street was actually fully revealed to the public via a press photograph taken on 6 January, 1990, which appeared in some newspapers the following day. The last of the paving slabs were just being put in place. There was a hint that we may not have lost Mike Baldwin as a local employer - it was revealed a new factory had been built as part of the development.

The photograph reveals some rather dinky, fancy street lamps along the new side of the Street. Some newspapers called the new houses 'yuppy' and the lamps did give things a rather 'exclusive' look. But they were quickly replaced with more bog standard street lights.

Of course, Des and Steph Barnes moved in in February but, although they had an ice cream maker, you could hardly call them yuppies. Well, I think one or two in the Street did but they weren't, not really. Phew!

A great era for the Corrie.

UPDATED 31/08/23

What If Coronation Street Was Archie Street? Part Four

Well, luvs, we've covered a lot of ground, and now we find ourselves in the back ginnel running between Coronation Street and Mawdsley Street.

The back yards are tiny, poky affairs, with outside lavvies (once the only lavs in each household). Of course, they're not lavs anymore. But the Ogdens' at No 13 was operating as a second lav in 1980 (and probably well beyond). We're not sure about the rest.

The kitchens jut out into the yards and... well... back in the day they shared the Street magic of being much bigger on the inside than on the outside.

The kitchen windows were low-set (are they on the 21st century exterior set?), but indoors had kitchen sinks beneath them. From outside, they were pantry-sized cubby holes.

No 9, with its lean-to glass extension, was the only house to differ.

The Corrie back ginnel as it was on the 1982 to early 21st Century set.

Ken and Deirdre Barlow at Number 1 had a posh kitchen extension in the mid-1980s. This was downright peculiar at first.

The kitchen having expanded, exterior shots showed that the old back room window was now no longer. But it remained inside for ages - before the design team twigged and it was turned into an interior window, giving 'borrowed light' from the kitchen.

Deirdre, Ken and Tracy, embroiled in their late 1980s saga of brillo perms, shoulder pads, Wendy Crozier, and listening to Bros cassettes upstairs, noticed nothing odd of course.

Come on, Tracy luv, join in: 'You're a slave to fashion and your life is full of passion...'

The backyard dividing walls could be odd. Sometimes they moved. Elsie Tanner's yard might be quite large one week, with the yard wall by the Ogdens' back window, but another week the Ogdens' yard might be larger, with the wall by Elsie's back window. And so on down the terrace.

The real back ginnel between Archie Street and Clement Street was featured in the Coronation Street titles for a while back in the 1960s. The Corrie ginnel is cobbled. The Archie Street ginnel was flagged.

Coronation Street backs on to Mawdsley Street - once home to Len Fairclough and Martha Longhurst - and home to Len Fairclough's builder's yard for many years (although it wandered off briefly in a 1976 map of Weatherfield featured in the TV Times). It was in Mawdsley Street, at the congregational chapel, that Emily Nugent married Ernest Bishop in 1972.

Archie Street backed onto Clement Street, named after St Clement's Church, a longer street which ran across the junction from the side of the church.

Len's yard popped over to Balaclava Terrace in 1976 in an officially sanctioned map. And then popped back to Mawdsley Street. It made a nice break.

An old mystery from the back of the Street is the Rovers stairs, running up the back of the premises from 1960-1986. After the infamous fire of 1986, they changed direction during the rebuild. That's because the original route of the stairs was a bit impossible. They would have run straight past the back parlour window.

Also, the part of the Rovers building that juts out to join the strange viaduct... well, it's an amazingly narrow jut-out. In fact, to me, it looks like a wall with a door and an upper window in it. Bet Lynch would never have got down it, even if she'd pulled her chest right in. And as for Fred Gee and Betty Turpin! What possible use is it?

Even in the super-spacious Street of the 21st century, there's still no room at the inn in the Rovers extremity.

Now we've reached Rosamund Street, site of the modern (and frankly bizarre) viaduct arch. In the Archie Street universe, we've reached Cavendish Street. Across the road is St Clement's Church. Coronation Street once had a church opposite it - back in the days of the indoor exterior set. It was called St Mary's, but - from 1968 onwards - that was a thing of the past, replaced by an occasional glimpse of a wall with gates set in it, and, from 1982, by a building which quickly became the Graffiti Club, wine bar and disco.

Echoes of reality: The church opposite the corner of Coronation Street on the 1960s set. Martha, Albert and Ena queue up to get their hair done at Valerie's in the foreground.

Rosamund Street in those days, was, of course, a long, straight road - apparently one of Weatherfield's main arteries (though it never seemed very busy). From the show's earliest days we'd tended to hare off down Rosamund Street at times. A Rosamund Street shop was part of the Street's action for decades. From the days of Swindley's haberdashery and Gamma Garments to the days of Len Fairclough's shop, the Kabin, Rosamund Street was a must-see.

Rita Littlewood, of course, was at first employed as manageress at the Kabin, but later married Len thus becoming part owner, and, upon his death, owner. The Kabin gave us years of wonderful, cherished scenes of Rita and her assistant Mavis Riley.

'I'm telling you now, Rita, that pineapple thingie's giving me the creeps! I can feel its eyes on me!'
'Get a grip, Mavis! There's a lot stranger things round 'ere...'

Next door, of course, baker Joe Dawson opened up a genteel little tea shop in 1978, causing the Kabin's café to close, and, in 1980, this genteel little emporium was bought by one Jim Sedgewick, who turned it into a rough and ready transport café.

In 1990, Rita sold the old Kabin and moved to a brand new one in Coronation Street. But Jim's Café continued to be featured. And here comes another mystery...

After a while, the old Kabin simply disappeared.

The doors to the Kabin and Jim's faced each other across a small, covered lobby.

The Kabin door remained for a while after Rita had decamped, seen from the interior of Jim's whenever somebody opened the door to enter or exit. But then, suddenly, without explanation, the old Kabin door disappeared, and was replaced by an advertising or community notice board. Jim's Café was suddenly at the end of a terrace of shops - and there was no sign of a covered lobby - or a shop next door where the old Kabin should have been - and no sign that part of the terrace had been demolished either.

Never mind, cock.

What a difference a decade makes! In 1984, it was Mavis, Rita and the pineapple thingie. In 1994, the old Kabin had vanished.

Next time I'll be takin' a look at the other side of the streets - Coronation and Archie - to delve more into't past and some of its oddities.

Anyway, I'm off to bingo and that new Pizza Hut in Esmerelda Street with Ida Clough tonight - so I'd better be makin' tracks. Should be a great night. You know worra laugh she is.

Part 5 is HERE

1984-1985: The Fruity Thingie At The Kabin...

September 1984, and Mavis Riley and Derek Wilton are planning their wedding (that wasn't), unaware they are being upstaged.

We'll have quite a lot to say about the old Kabin in Rosamund Street in the next instalment of our What If Coronation Street Was Archie Street? series, but, in the meantime, can anybody solve a little mid-1980s mystery?

Times change of course, and some of us who were kids back in the old days can recall having toys which, although deemed 'cute' at the time, were actually a bit on the ugly side by modern day standards.

The Kabin, of course, sold (and sells) a few toys, and in late 1984 a strange little fruity thing (Orange? Pineapple?) flitted around the shelves for a few months, into early 1985.

The thingie with Rita Fairclough.

What on earth was it? A child's cuddly? Some kind of activity toy (in certain lights it seemed to have a handle on the side). WHAT? It was certainly a character, arresting my attention in many scenes, and seemingly quite a performer in its own right.

As Mavis tells Reet where to get off, Ken Barlow is getting the eye from the fruity thingie.

Did any readers own a toy like this? Has anybody spotted one in an old mail order catalogue from those days? If so, can we have the details, please? We're dead curious!

November 1984, and the fruity thingie is still on the shelf - a different shelf this time, having scuttled up on to the top one. Tony Cunliffe is blissfully oblivious that the thingie is leering down at him.

Name That Cliffhanger - 2

In our second Name That Cliffhanger session, we've headed back to 1976 and The Kabin (then based at 14 Rosamund Street). Rita Littlewood (Barbara Knox) and Mavis Riley (Thelma Barlow) may have got on each other's nerves at times, but they were the best of friends really - neither would ever do anything to hurt the other.

Or would they?

Witness the scene above - Rita greeting Mavis's boyfriend, Derek Wilton (Peter Baldwin) with a passionate kiss...

Worse still, Mavis was out - having a drink at The Rovers at the time!

At the double doors leading up to her flat, Rita said:

"Derek, just ask and it shall be yours!"

Derek replied nervously: "What?"

Rita smiled, saucily: "Anything!"

And the scene faded to the closing credits.

Was Rita really out to steal the boyfriend of her best pal Mavis?

Does anybody know the answer out there?

1976: Rita Finds Fame...

Len Fairclough chats up Rita Littlewood. Neither seem to have noticed the fact that Rita is appearing on the cover of the TV Times. Had her performances at the Gatsby led to an appearance on Sunday Night At The London Palladium?

Watching Coronation Street way back in 1976, I recall boggling at the sight of a copy of a TV Times magazine featuring Barbara Mullaney (now Knox) on the cover in the Kabin's magazine rack. It appeared there in several scenes, and kind of freaked me out!

Did the good people of Weatherfield watch Coronation Street on the telly like the rest of us, I wondered?

1982: Kabin Consternation

It wasn't unknown for people to read out of date magazines and newspapers in Coronation Street back in the '60s, '70s and '80s (it probably still happens nowadays). When you remember the time lapse between the recording and screening of each episode, it was inevitable that if you glimpsed the headline on a newspaper being read by a character, or a magazine cover, it was going to be a few week's old.

But in 1982 an eagle eyed viewer spotted dastardly doings at The Kabin:

From the Daily Star, letters page, Wednesday, July 28, 1982:

I wonder whether anybody else noticed how out-dated Rita Fairclough's magazines are in Coronation Street. Last Wednesday (July 21) Mavis held one dated February 27.

M.C. Daventry, Northants.

The Star got on to Granada who replied:

"Daily Star readers are certainly sharp-eyed to spot our mistake. With a million and one details to attend to in the programme, this one escaped our notice."

"Ooh, Rita, do you really think it's right selling out of date magazines?"

"Shurrup, Mavis, Len's got a deal wi't wholesalers, gets 'em for next to nowt and folk round 'ere are that puddled they'll never notice!"

1978: Joe Dawson

Bit of a Corrie bad 'un, this one. Joe Dawson (Peter Schofield) breezed into Rosamund Street in 1978 and acquired the vacant shop premises next door to The Kabin.

Of course, Rita and Mavis were very curious indeed to know what Mr Dawson's business was going to be.

An "outlet" - the third - for the bread and cakes produced at his bakery in Armitage Street, said Mr D.

But that wasn't all there was to it. The "outlet" was going to be a cafe.

And at that time The Kabin was doing a thriving trade as a cafe/newsagent's.

The Kabin soon received a visit from a local council inspector, and the cafe operation was declared illegal. There were no toilet facilities.

Len and Rita were furious - who had blown the whistle on them? Alf Roberts, a local councillor, made inquiries, and Joe Dawson was revealed to be the culprit.

Len went berserk and Mr Dawson nearly ended up on the end of his fist.

When Emily Bishop applied for a job at the cafe, Mr Dawson told her that he hadn't set out to drop Len in it: on enquiring about sanitary requirements for his new premises, he had baulked at the Council's insistence on his providing two loos and pointed out that The Kabin had none, so surely they were not necessary by law?

Emily believed him. But we viewers had our doubts.