Hollyoaks

CHILDWALL, LIVERPOOL
PHOTOGRAPHED IN 2016 & 2017

Once the site of a Stuart-era mansion, the Hollyoaks set is an interesting mix of buildings and structures. The modern history of the site dates back to the late 1940s, when Childwall Hall – at that time, a former golf club – was demolished due to dry rot. The hall was in fact one of several revivals of the original mansion, although remnants of a Georgian incarnation of the manor still survive and can occasionally be seen on screen (most of the sandstone walls are mock, but some close to the edge of the site are original).

In 1955, a new building to house Childwall Hall County College was built and later fenced off from the surrounding woods, forming the perimeter of what is now Lime Pictures’ Campus Manor site. The college was later renamed Childwall Hall College of Further Education, before closing in 1988. The site was then acquired by Mersey Television (now Lime Pictures) in 1989/90 as a production base for Brookside.

In 1991, the Brookside Parade set (more on Brookside here) was created from the former college’s science block in Zone 1 on the above photo, with 1995 seeing much of Campus Manor transformed into Hollyoaks village. Further development took place throughout the 90s and early 2000s – including acquisition of additional land from the adjacent school – and notably in 2003 when the old college was transformed into Grange Hill School, after production of Grange Hill was moved from the BBC Elstree Centre.

Since the cancellation of Grange Hill in 2008, the site has been exclusively used for the production of Hollyoaks, apart from being temporarily re-purposed for filming of The Case in 2011. In 2017, the forecourt of the petrol station from Brookside Parade was landscaped for on-screen use; having previously been used as a props store.

Gallery

Brookside _{(photographed in 2023)}

In early 1982, Mersey Television purchased Brookside Close, a brand new Liverpool cul-de-sac of 13 real houses priced at £25,000 each; custom-built for the TV company by a local developer. It was to become the home of Brookside, a brand new soap from Phil Redmond, the creator of Grange Hill and later, Hollyoaks.

A plan of the set, showing the following (double figure numbers are actual nos.):

🅐 Main filming area
– 49-59: house sets.

🅑 Production houses sometimes seen on screen
– 43-47: reception + administration/accounts office and producer’s office
– 61: canteen
– 63-67: dressing rooms, wardrobe/hair & make-up and laundry (ground floor) and technical facilities (gallery and VTR & edit suites) on first floor
– 67 cabin: green room/crew room, director’s office and camera/lighting store.

🅒 Production houses
– 27-33: unused
– 35-41: art department (cabin originally housed edit suite and camera store).

🅓 Security lodge & car parking

The Brookside Parade alleyway was a fenced passage running from the close for a short distance behind numbers 53 and 55. It is shown below in 2008 and 15 years later, extremely overgrown with missing fence panels, in 2023.

Brookside ran for 21 years before being axed in 2003, following which some of the houses were used by Hollyoaks. In June 2005, Redmond – who was the owner and chairman of Mersey TV – sold the company to international distributor, All3Media, and Brookside Close was sold to a developer soon after.

The houses were gutted and partially re-built internally, before being placed on the market in 2007. However, they failed to sell and fell into disrepair after the developer, Off Plan Investments, became insolvent despite an apparent attempt to raise funds in 2008 by allowing horror film, Salvage, to be shot on the close.

The same year, the properties at 43-67 Brookside were put up for auction with a guide price of £650,000, selling for £735,000 to Liverpool businessman, Wally Carroll (the houses at 27-41 Brookside were bought in 2009 by another buyer). In 2012, Carroll also purchased the site of the former Mersey TV security lodge – added in around 1985 – for £60,000, which is now occupied by two brand new houses at 69 and 71 Brookside.

Following a £1 million renovation project, the close was restored to its former glory in 2011 and the houses have been tenanted since, making a brief appearance as part of a special film for Eurovision 2023.

The former TV set is officially known as Brookside Close and signposted accordingly, but the properties use just ‘Brookside’ (without the ‘Close’) as their address for consistent numbering with adjacent properties along Brookside, which is a legally separate road (a little confusing, but there you have it).