Weatherfield

I’m a northerner, so eventually I had to make a day trip up north.  The trouble is that Oxford is in the south, of course, and there aren’t many places that are accessible from here in the span of a day.  The best you can do most of the time is the direct train to Manchester, but, like with London, everyone goes to Manchester.  Here’s a lesser-spotted northern town to visit instead.

Date of trip: Saturday 9th December 2017
Journey time: Approx 3hrs (train to Manchester Piccadilly, then the Metrolink tram to Weatherfield North)
Fare: £46.10 (Off-Peak rail fare, with 16–25 Railcard, split at Banbury; then Off-Peak Metrolink return)

So, sure, there are a lot of, shall we say, negative features about Weatherfield.  For one, its high rate of violent crime, equalled only by the East End of London and the occasional Yorkshire village.  There’s been a high-profile murder already this year, in fact, and rumours of more having been covered up are flying around in the local press.  But don’t let that put you off; most crime seems to occur as a result of disputes between residents, with random acts of violence rare.

Another issue is that it’s not got any features of national note.  But then where for this blog has?  Of course, there’s a church, and because I always seem to visit the church it was worth a wander around.  It’s a fairly old church, with parts dating from the 16th Century.  Erm, it has a tower.  And some pews.  That’s about it, to be honest.

I get the feeling I’m not doing a very good job of encouraging you to go to Weatherfield, and really it’s not the sort of place where I know of any sort of formal tourist attraction, of local interest or otherwise.  To be honest, what I like about it is mainly its realism.  The town really is an unspoilt example of the sort of northern town you’d have found back in the sixties, full of corner shops and terraced houses along the densely-packed streets (some of which retain, inexplicably, their original cobbles).  It’s the sort of place where you can get those sorts of grimy industrial photos that seem to appear in allegedly-trendy cafés—except, for some reason I can’t explain, I forgot my camera when I went.  (Apologies, the pictures here are sourced from the internet, and credited if you click through; surprisingly many people seem to have visited as bona fide tourists for somewhere of about the stature of Salford.)

Talking of allegedly-trendy cafés, there’s one of those (“Nick’s Bistro”, although some bloke called Robert seemed to own it?  Not sure what was going on there), but I actually went to the very much not-trendy local caff, “Roy’s Rolls”.  I loved that place, and not just because he had model trains on the wall (well, three of them; the fourth wall seemed to have collapsed).  Again, it had a community feel that many places have lost, with lots of interesting conversations to overhear about who’d fathered whose baby and which small child had set fire to the trampoline.  And the bacon barm was excellent.

There was a traditional pub down the street, which I would have gone into but there seemed to be some sort of brawl starting over an affair, so I chickened out.  This was a mistake, as it turns out the pub is perhaps the street’s crowning glory.  Its speciality, I found out later, is its traditional Lancashire hotpot; the recipe is a closely-guarded secret, such that entire disputes worthy of a soap opera have taken place around it.  Perhaps I’ll get to try it next time.

It was surprising, in fact, how few chain stores had reached the town, or at least the small part I visited; even with a Co-op and a Costa under construction, it’s held out well.  In fact, there was a locally-owned underwear factory (“Underworld”: I do love a pun), which was even more surprising, as the textile manufacturing industries of the north-west mostly only survive in works of fiction.  Admittedly, it was derelict, and someone seemed to have stolen the roof, but it looked like it would be up-and-running again soon.

In summary, then, Weatherfield isn’t exactly recommended in the Lonely Planet guide to Britain; you won’t find it even listed at all (I checked).  As such, if you do follow me there, you might be tempted to combine it with a trip to Manchester, so at least you’ve been somewhere you’ve heard of.  But why bother?  After all, with all the tourists taking photos around the place, sometimes living in Oxford can feel like living in a TV show, and isn’t it nice to get away from that for a while and go somewhere the complete opposite?  Weatherfield is normal northern town, and sometimes an escape to that, even for just half an hour or so, can be just what you need.

[EDIT 02/04/2018: This was an April Fool’s post.  Weatherfield doesn’t exist; it has a Wikipedia page, however, which confirms it as the fictional setting of the long-running ITV soap Coronation Street.  Sadly I never went on the studio tour when it was running, hence the borrowing of other people’s photos, which I’ve now removed.  It’s filmed in Salford, in the building shown above; the area around there is genuinely worth a visit, so maybe I’ll write about it someday.]