The BBC has finally released highly anticipated new crime drama The Jetty, with filming locations in several areas around Lancashire and Greater Manchester, for BBC One and BBC iPlayer. In the four-part series, a fire tears through a holiday home in a scenic Lancashire lake town, starring Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who, The Cry, The Serpent). Detective Ember Manning (Coleman) must work out how it connects to a podcast journalist investigating a missing persons cold case and an illicit ‘love’ triangle between a man in his twenties and two underage girls.
Filming in Lancashire and Greater Manchester wrapped earlier this year, with locations such as Hollingworth Lake in Littleborough featuring, as well as Todmorden on the West Yorkshire border. So, for those as nosey as us, here are all the filming locations not far from Manchester to look out for when you’re binging The Jetty.
Hollingworth Lake, Littleborough
The Lancashire lake town that is the main setting for The Jetty was mainly set and filmed at Greater Manchester’s scenic Hollingworth Lake, Littleborough.
From the opening moments, viewers will see sweeping camerawork across the lake, as the character of journalist Riz Samuel talks about the beauty of the fictional town where the drama unfolds. She says: “Let me paint you a picture, this place is stunning and I’m talking pain relief to the soul stunning”.
“You look out of the water and you feel somehow connected to everyone who has ever looked at it, and everyone who ever will. It makes you feel mortal, but not in a scary way.”
If you’ve ever been to Hollingworth Lake, you’ll understand why this setting is the perfect place to set such a gritty drama, and scenes throughout play out around the edges of the lake and the boat jetties as the detectives arrive at the scene.
Producers of the show said they chose the locations in the north as they wanted a “wild, raw, beauty“. The Jetty‘s executive producer Elizabeth Kilgariff said: “The setting was a very changeful place. We were filming near Lancashire, in the winter essentially, so it’s quite wild.
“There’s a rawness to it, but there’s so much beauty as well. There’s also something dangerous about the setting.”
A fire is also alight at an old building near the lake, which was all filmed inside a former Sea Cadets hut at Hollingworth, with a dramatic view of the surroundings, and of course, Hollingworth Lake Rowing Club plays a pretty central part in an exchange between Ember and her therapist Casey, with canoes littering the screen. The interior of the club also acts as the local pub where all the locals mingle, which becomes pretty important towards the end of the series.
Calder Valley
Areas in the Calder Valley, just over the Lancashire Yorkshire border, were also used as filming locations for The Jetty. The cobbled streets and terraced houses of scenic towns such as Ripponden, Todmorden and Sowerby Bridge were used for the domestic parts of the lake town, boasting gorgeous stone and industrial history, with a moody background on which to set the story.
Todmorden High School was used as the pretty central location of Hap School, where much of the drama surrounding the students, especially in the flashback scenes with Amy and Caitlin, takes place. It’s a pretty good backdrop, serving as a normal-looking high school that any northerner − or Brit, for that matter − would recognise from their school days.
Amy Knightley’s family house with the empty pool is an elegant four-bedroom Georgian home in Ripponden, in the Ryburn Valley. According to real estate websites, this large property has an estimated market value of £800,000.
Hare Hill Bowling Club was also used in a pretty intense scene, that just so happens to show off the gorgeous views over Littleborough, and is of course pretty characteristic of these semi-rural areas.
Perhaps the most used filming location, aside from the jetty itself, was the lovely Yorkshire stone canalside Todmorden cottage that acts as Ember and daughter Hannah’s house. The beautiful house is characteristic of the area, and will likely leave viewers wanting to move to the Yorkshire market town (it’s under 30 mins on the train!).
Manchester Studio
Although The Jetty is very much an out-in-the-sticks production, the crew actually built a studio inside a Manchester building to stand in as the interior of the main police station in the drama. DC Manning sees a lot of strife, arguments, and indeed breakthroughs in this ‘building’, and it’s just down the road from where writer, creator and executive producer Cat Jones grew up.
Trafford Town Hall
Several high-intensity scenes take place at a hospital in The Jetty as, without spoiling the whole thing, there’s plenty of hurting going on. Although the interior is likely purpose built, the exterior used is actually that of Trafford Town Hall, with its grand pillars and royal hospital-like entrance. The ‘Royal Kings Hospital’ even uses Trafford’s characteristic balcony and exterior flagpoles, only changing the etching on the entrance to make it into the hospital.
So, as you binge − or patiently wait for each episode to air − The Jetty, see which filming locations you can pick out. We’ll certainly be updating you as more inevitably come up.
You can watch The Jetty now on BBC iPlayer.