Coronation Street fans have been left baffled by a major change to the Rovers Return pub – with the appearance of a new kitchen area dominating social media.
The iconic boozer has been on our screens for 63 years, and during that time has undergone few renovations despite changing hands a number of times.
The most recent changes happened on New Year’s Eve when current landladies Jenny Connor (Sally Ann Matthews) and Daisy Midgley (Charlotte Jordan) employed the patrons to help them quickly implement some changes ahead of its reopening.
The pub had been closed and boarded up for quite some time after it was sold to brewery LS Waterfords – but despite draping dust sheets over the soft furnishings, they hadn’t started renovations to transform it into a modern gastropub.
When Daisy discovered the key to them buying it back was to uncover the money that serial killer Stephen Reid (Todd Boyce) had stolen from Carla Connor (Alison King) and the Underworld business, Jenny was caught in the crossfire between her two step-daughters.
In a bid to keep their wrongdoings a secret, Daisy devised a plan to tell everyone that her mum Christina Boyd (Amy Robbins) had loaned her the dollar.
The scheme was thrown into jeopardy last week when she made a grand return to Weatherfield – and Bethany Platt (Lucy Fallon) sussed that due to their tense relationship it was unlikely that they were telling the truth.
Spotting Daisy returning home with her arms full of designer shopping bags, she questioned her on her whereabouts and said she’d been raiding the charity shops in Alderley Edge, a desirable part of Cheshire.
But after speaking with Tim Metcalfe (Joe Duttine), he revealed that he’d actually picked her up from Exchange Square, near to department store Selfridge’s in Manchester City centre.
Wondering how she could afford such items, Bethany listened in to a conversation where Jenny scorned Daisy for splashing the cash.
In last night’s (2nd April) episode, the women agreed to put their differences aside at a dinner party with their boyfriends Daniel Osbourne (Rob Mallard) and Ryan Connor (Ryan Prescott).
As Daisy prepared the veg in the kitchen, Bethany plotted to destroy the meal by twiddling with the oven.
Upon finding Stephen’s diary hidden away in the Rovers’ back room, she then set about exposing her findings over dinner which resulted in an explosive row and Carla wondering whether her suspicions could prove truthful.
However, despite the high drama, viewers of the ITV soap were more focussed on the set for the public house’s kitchen facilities – home to many of Betty Williams’ (Betty Driver) hot pots – which had seemingly grown overnight.
The room leads off the living quarters, and has been rarely seen over the years.
On its last appearance, it was a small galley kitchen with counters alongside one wall and a glazed door at the end, but has now grown into a fully fledged commercial space with multiple rooms.
The new set, which forms part of the show’s 7.7 acre production base in Trafford, Greater Manchester, has set tongues wagging on X/Twitter.
‘Since when did the Rovers get a massive kitchen? Has that always been there?’ asked one fan.
‘Has the Rovers had a large kitchen extension overnight?’ pondered another.
‘The Rovers kitchen in Corrie is like the TARDIS [from Doctor Who]. Unless they’ve narrowed the street outside and built an extension, it’s 3x as big as it used to be’
One viewer realised the extension would be in the middle of Rosamund Street: ‘Anyone ever notice the on screen layout of the Rovers Return isn’t accurate? The living room would be in the road next to the Rovers, and since when has the kitchen more than doubled in size? Fire door and another door to go further past the kitchen as well.’
Others jokingly posted pictures of other large cooking areas whilst one shared a view of it, with legendary characters Annie Walker (Doris Speed) and Hilda Ogden (Jean Alexander), from 1970.
Some fans have been unable to stop thinking about it: ‘I went to bed thinking about the Rovers kitchen. I woke up thinking about the Rovers kitchen’ said one user today.
In a bizarre twist, the refurbished scullery is similar in size to the one seen during the 90s before being made smaller in the early 2000s.
In 1992, landlord Alec Gilroy (Roy Barraclough) was told he’d by food hygiene professionals that he’d need to install a separate space away from the living quarters to prepare food, but had bigger fish to fry when he discovered a tarantula was on the loose amongst the pots and pans.
The following year, having took reigns of the pub once again, Alec’s wife Bet (Julie Goodyear) had a heart to heart with her close pal Rita Sullivan (Barbara Knox) in the kitchen regarding her jealousy of Liz McDonald (Beverley Callard) who had been offered a lucrative position as landlady of rival inn The Queens.
This isn’t the first time that Coronation Street have drastically changed one of their sets without explanation – as the majority of interiors are filmed separately in studios nearby to the exterior backlot, they are often much grander in scale than what they should be.
