The final season of Peaky Blinders has officially come to an end, and once again we’ve been treated to plenty of incredible sets based here in Manchester.
Our city is often used by BBC film crews for the series, despite the drama actually being set in post-war Birmingham.
The excitement started building way back in spring last year when Cillian Murphy and his co-stars were spotted filming scenes around Castlefield.
In previous years, Peaky Blinders cast and crews have descended on locations like Victoria Baths, London Road Fire Station, and Stockport Plaza.
There have been masses of familiar locations that have popped up on screen this year too.
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And a warning – spoilers lie ahead.
Chrome Hill
Chrome Hill was a filming location in the Peaky Blinders finale. Credit: BBC
One of the most spectacularly visual scenes of the whole season of Peaky Blinders was right at the end, where Tommy has taken himself off to live in a caravan in the hills.
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Those hills aren’t too far from Manchester – it was all filmed near Chrome Hill in the Peak District.
The beautiful peaks around here are sometimes nicknamed the ‘Matterhorn of the Peak District’ thanks to its pyramid-like shape, similar to that of the iconic Toblerone mountain in the Alps.
Ashton Memorial, Lancaster
Gina in Peaky Blinders inside the Ashton Memorial. Credit: BBC
The stunning art deco room where Gina Gray (played by Anya Taylor-Joy) lounged in a lot of her scenes was meant to be in America.
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But it’s actually in the north west – the incredible white marble interiors are the inside of the Ashton Memorial in Lancaster.
You’ll find the Grade I-listed building in Williamson Park.
Le Mans Crescent
Scenes at Le Mans Crescent in Peaky Blinders. Credit: BBC
The sweep of Grade II-listed buildings in the centre of Bolton regularly pops up in historical dramas, and Peaky Blinders is no different.
One of the end units in the grand terrace became the Shelby Sanatorium for Sick Children, where Tommy and his wife Lizzie sadly spent a lot of time in this series.
It cropped up in several episodes – including the gut-wrenching moment where the lead character found out his daughter had died.
One of Greater Manchester’s most iconic historical buildings pops up, very briefly, as a location in this final season of Peaky Blinders.
When Tommy – who is MP for Birmingham South as well as a notorious gangster – pops along to give a speech to Labour party supporters, it’s Salford Lad’s Club that he approaches.
The club has been there since 1903.
Arley Hall
Both the inside and the outside of Arley Hall have become familiar sights while watching the BBC’s hit gangster drama.
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And this year was no different – including an, erm, explosive moment right in the final episode.
The grand Cheshire mansion has been there from the very opening scene of season six, and its rooms have doubled up as Tommy’s study and the family’s dining room.
Castlefield
Castlefield’s historic cobbled streets have doubled up as Birmingham’s Small Heath for the final instalment of Peaky Blinders.
It caused a lot of excitement when the huge set was built, including a mock-frontage of the Garrison Pub owned by the Shelby clan.
The area beneath the railway bridge was even used in the season finale’s dramatic shoot-out scene.
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Castlefield, again
Castlefield was a major filming location for Peaky Blinders this year. Credit: BBC
Castlefield was also used for Chinatown, complete with red lanterns and fake tea houses.
The pyrotechnics were back out in force here, when Tommy dropped a bomb off one of the footbridges over the canal.
There were 1930s-style Chinese adverts plastered on billboards too, along with a poster advertising Shelby Dry Gin.
Lee Quarry, Bacup
Over in Lancashire, the Lee Quarry in Bacup provided a dramatic backdrop for Tommy’s encounter with his ex-sister in law Esme.
The former working quarry is now a free-to-use mountain bike trail.
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Hotel Gotham
Hotel Gotham was one of the locations used in Peaky Blinders. Credit: BBC
There’s absolutely no mistaking this Manchester landmark, even if the Peaky Blinders team have rebranded it to the Midland.
This is the Hotel Gotham on King Street, a huge art deco five-star hotel that is one of Manchester’s most beautiful buildings.
Its familiar exterior only gets a very brief appearance before Tommy heads inside to a nondescript hotel room.
Featured image: BBC
TV & Showbiz
Molly-Mae Hague revisits first Manchester flat, now on the market for £185k
Daisy Jackson
Molly-Mae Hague’s first Manchester flat is now on the market for £185k – and the star herself has paid a visit to her old digs.
Those who have been following Molly-Mae since before she shot to serious fame on Love Island will have recognised the backdrop of her recent TikTok video.
The 27-year-old reality TV star and businesswoman posed around the one-bedroom flat, dancing to Sabrina Carpenter’s ‘House Tour’.
The apartment is where she lived just before entering Love Island, and where she and now-fiance Tommy Fury lived briefly when they left the show.
And now that exact flat where she really launched her social media career has been listed for sale, at £185,000.
The corner apartment stands on the 17th floor of Islington Wharf, overlooking New Islington tram stop and right on the doorstep of Ancoats.
Her former landlord, who arranged for Molly-Mae to have one look around her old flat before it’s sold, said that she was a ‘lovely, polite and down-to-earth young woman, and an excellent tenant who looked after the apartment extremely well.’
The one bedroom apartment has double-aspect floor-to-ceiling windows which look across Manchester on one side, and out towards the Pennines on the other.
It’s listed for sale with no chain and the option to include existing furnishings (which seems to include the same couch Molly-Mae had at the time).
The flat also has a kitchen/living space, a communal garden, superfast broadband, and is within walking distance of Manchester Piccadilly.
Hans Zimmer at Co-op Live, Manchester – movie magic brought to life
Lonnie Bowes
What do Batman, Kung Fu Panda, and Captain Jack Sparrow all have in common? Music by Hans Zimmer, of course.
I must admit it’s an odd sight seeing 20,000 people seated in the Co-op Live. Manchester is no stranger to a big night out, but this is a different beast entirely. No mosh pits, no flying pints, no one on anyone’s shoulders. Just a full orchestra, a choir, and a wall of screens.
At the centre of it all is conductor Matt Dunkley, steering the Odessa Orchestra & Friends through some of the most recognisable music ever put to film. Zimmer appears on the big screens between pieces to introduce the music and the stories behind it. I was disappointed that Hans didn’t make an appearance but let me tell you this performance was no less impressive.
And in no time at all the gloves came off. Batman is, quite simply, incredible. All menace and muscle, strings sawing away like something is about to go very wrong, brass and percussion hitting so hard you feel it in your ribcage before you hear it.
Gladiator pulls things the other way. Where Batman pins you to your seat, this one lifts you out of it in a big way. Lets face it, if you are some what of a self respecting movie head, you’ll have seen Gladiator and know first hand how ‘Now we are free’ can command your mood. Well imagine that in person.
If the orchestra is the engine, the Nairobi Chamber Chorus is the heart. When their voices rise for The Lion King, it stops being a concert and becomes something closer to gospel.
Hans Zimmer at Co-op Live. Credit: The Manc Group
Because beneath the scale and the spectacle, there’s something more intentional at play. These pieces of music are part of people’s lives. We are talking first trips to the cinema, films watched with parents, soundtracks that got someone through a rough year.
And then there’s Interstellar. ‘No Time for Caution’ creates it own suspense. The organ churns, the tempo tightens like a ticking clock, you genuinely find yourself gripping the armrest as if you’re the one trying to dock a spinning spacecraft.
Time, from Inception, is the other side of that coin when it comes to what it emotes during the performance. It’s slow, it’s patient and it’s moving. It builds from almost nothing, layer on layer.
After all that, there’s only one way to send people home. Pirates of the Caribbean closes the night at full tilt. You think everything is drawing to end, Matt Dunkley has already guided you to the apex of nights performance, but no. Hans Zimmer flashes on to the screen one more time and alluded that’s we aren’t at the finish line just yet. Strings galloping, the whole orchestra going hell for leather. Heads nodding, feet stamping, grins everywhere.
Epic, emotional and beautifully played. This wasn’t just a concert it was a reminder: that a piece of music can take you somewhere else entirely, and that you don’t need a single lyric to make thousands of strangers feel the exact same thing at the exact same time.
Hats off to every musician on that stage. You absolutely smashed it.
Daisy Jackson -
6th April 2022 
