Inside the Corrie Prop Store (Part 1 of 3)

Our friends Gemma and Michael, the Coronation Street podcasters at Conversation Street...

... were recently invited into ITV studios for a very special look around the Coronation Street set. And while there, they were given a tour of the Corrie prop store too. They have very kindly offered to share the experience with fans here on the Coronation Street Blog - and they've sent some cracking pictures too. 

Gemma and Michael spoke about their visit to Corrie in a recent podcast and you can listen to it here.

The blog post is quite long and to do it justice here on the blog with all the pictures, I'm splitting their report into three parts which will run today and the next two days.

Here's Part 1 and we hope you enjoy reading it. Part 2 will be on the blog tomorrow Wednesday 3 May and Part 3 on Thursday 4 May.

"There is a cave, boy, a Cave of Wonders, filled with treasures beyond your wildest dreams..."

"Whilst Aladdin's cave may have been packed with mountains of gold, flying carpets and that famous magic lamp, we reckon we've found somewhere even more incredible.

Tucked round the corner behind the Rosamund Street Medical Centre at the Coronation Street studios is the prop store - a huge warehouse with shelves lined with ornaments, furniture, photographs and other bits and bobs that can be easily accessed when dressing the sets ready to be filmed.

Now this isn't something that just any Corrie fan can visit of course, but being the diamonds in the rough that we are, we were lucky enough to be given the chance to browse Corrie's very own Cave of Wonders on our recent trip to the studios, and we thought you might like to hear a bit more about it.

Walking into the prop store for the first time was certainly an overwhelming experience. Everywhere we looked were things we recognised from the show, mixed in with hundreds of anonymous items that are never meant to stand out on screen, but combine to make the various houses and businesses feel like more real, lived-in places.

Some of the most recognisable objects we saw first were the family photos, all collected together in one section. From oft-seen snaps like the photo of Deirdre that sits on Ken's chest of drawers to more obscure pictures such as a headshot of John Stape victim Charlotte Hoyle, they were all here.

Even a picture of Freddie and, presumably, his late wife Sadie was among the collection. Why were some of these even being kept? Who knows, but as a collection of portraits, they certainly captured a sense of Corrie's long and colourful history.

Part 2 of Inside the Corrie Prop Store will appear on the Blog on Wednesday 3 May.

Visit Conversation Street, the Coronation Street podcast

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Tvor @tvordlj on Twitter