Brit Dopers, if I wanted to visit ‘The Street’ for chips or kebabs and to pretend I’m placing a bet at the bookies or taking a cab with Steve MacDonald, where would I go? I know it’s modeled after Greater Manchester, but aside from that there’s no better detail. Is there a specific neighborhood that’s most like the one on the show? My apologies in advance if this sounds ignorant, I’m not all too familiar w/ UK geography. (Ya’ll are North of Franceyland, right? 
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It’s based on Salford - part of Greater Manchester - but I couldn’t tell you a particular street. Too long since I lived in Manachester and it’s all changed :dubious:
ETA Zoom in on Salford on Google Maps and you’ll see rows and rows of streets of terraced houses.
Many of the elements of Coronation Street are quite realistic and could be experienced in any British city or town. The corner shops, the dodgy cabbies, the kebab vans, the betting shops (maybe less so with the rise of online betting).
The cobbled streets and tiny back-to-backs (see other current thread) of Coronation Street are a bit of an anachronism, though. I’m sure streets like that do still exist, but not in the cosy, close-knit community way that Coronation Street depicts.
Coronation Street, like many long-running soaps, has become something of an anachronism in its depiction of life because viewers don’t want it to change too much or too quickly. While streets which look like that can still be found they aren’t typical and having a factory and a garage and a shop all there would be even less typical these days - most such inner city businesses would have ceased trading long ago.
Googled it there in Lancashire- Irlams O’ Th’ Height is an awesomely archaic name. Look at all those rows and rows of houses! I guess you’d better like your neighbors,eh?
Where’s the city centre /precinct?
Nit-pick. Those houses in Coronation Street are not back-to-backs. They have back yards and their rear walls are not shared with another house. There are just ordinary terrace houses.
In Corrie, I’ve heard them referred to as ‘council houses’, is that a style?
No, council houses are low rent properties owned by the local council and leased to the more hard-up. Don’t know what you’d call it - social housing perhaps?
Council houses are normally in purpose built estates - many were built in the post-war period and nowadays are often apartment buildings - and aren’t victorian terraces. Councils do occasionally own odd houses in a street which they rent out - so perhaps one of two of the houses in Corrie would be ‘council houses’, but most would be privately owned (or, at least, private landlord-owned)
Any town in the north will have streets exactly like Coronation street. Here’s one in Wigan (complete with ginnel).
This is sort of a Cafe Society tangent.
Bill Bryson mentions the Coronation Street neighborhood in his book about the UK, Notes from a Small Island. If you are interested in a “virtual visit” to that type of place, you might enjoy the book.
I don’t see any cobbles
They’re probably still there under the tarmac. The street where I lived in Sheffield was part cobbled and part inexpertly tarmaced-over. In winter great chunks of tarmac would lift up and reveal more cobbles underneath.
SanVito writes:
> No, council houses are low rent properties owned by the local council and
> leased to the more hard-up. Don’t know what you’d call it - social housing
> perhaps?
In the U.S. they’re usually called “public housing.” They’re often referred to as “the housing projects” or just “the projects.” They’re mostly apartment buildings.
Say ‘council house’ to the average Brit and they’ll probably pitcure something like this
How could you make them out from a satellite photo, anyway? 
Genuine cobbled street, complete with proof of cobbled status.
Gosh, if that’s the street how narrow’s the ginnel?? One car width?
ETA - Great Wigan website, the pictures are wonderful and now I really want a pint of cider at Bentley’s. Is there a chippy in walking distance?
Yeah, probably. The houses were built before cars took off. I haven’t been to that street, though, so I don’t know for sure (it’s in Ince, which is like the Wild West—avoid at all costs).
No you don’t. Not if you favour your safety, anyway 
Do they not wash their glasses between patrons? 
Cobbled streets don’t tend to have the word SLOW painted across them in giant letters.
SanVito writes:
> Say ‘council house’ to the average Brit and they’ll probably pitcure something
> like this
Yes, I know. Houses like that would probably be called row houses in the U.S. I don’t know of any houses like that are public housing in the U.S. That’s why I said that most public housing in the U.S. is apartment buildings.