Rovers Return Inn

Rovers Return Inn

Rovers Return Inn.
Type	Public house
Founded	1902 (In-universe)
Address	Rovers Return Inn, Coronation Street
Location	Weatherfield
Owners	Steve McDonald and Liz McDonald

The Rovers Return Inn is a fictional pub in the long-running British soap opera Coronation Street.

The Rovers Return occupies a corner of Coronation Street and Rosamund Street. The pub was built by the fictional brewery Newton and Ridley. The Rovers Return Inn has been a free house since 1996, although the brewery continues to supply it. The name comes from the Rover's Return in Withy Grove, Manchester, a 14th-century building which became a licensed house at some point but ceased to be so in 1924 and was demolished in 1958.

The Rovers has had three layouts. The original layout of a Public Bar, Select and the Snug was replaced by a single bar after a fire, caused by an electrical fault, devastated The Rovers in June 1986. This layout lasted until March 2013 when another fire, started by Karl Munro destroyed The Rovers.

The Rover's Return opened in 1902 on the newly built Coronation Street (1902 being Coronation year for Edward VII). It was originally to be called The Coronation but the brewery was forced to change the name as the go-ahead had already been given for the street to be named Coronation Street. When Lieutenant Philip Ridley returned from active service in the Boer War, the pub was named in his honour. In 1918, to celebrate the return of the soldiers from World War I, the apostrophe was removed, thus making it The Rovers Return. When Coronation Street began in 1960, the signage of the pub read "The Rovers Return" but at some point was changed to read "Rovers Return Inn", without a "The".

Originally, the pub was divided into three separate bars: the public bar, the snug (usually inhabited by unaccompanied ladies, where drinks were half a penny cheaper) and the select (where drinks were more expensive but were served by a waitress). As late as 1960, the ruling in the pub was that ladies were not allowed to remain at the bar after being served. These archaic rules were dropped in the early 1960s. When the fire gutted the pub in 1986, the three bars were knocked into one large room.

The living quarters downstairs bear no resemblance to the exterior set of the pub. In reality, the living room (the "back room") would be in the middle of the street at the side of the pub, outside the medical centre. Since 1960 the toilet and cellar doors on the other side of the building would seem to enter the Barlow's kitchen, next door at number one Coronation Street. There is also no obvious room for a commercial kitchen, despite the lunchtime serving of Betty Williams' noted hotpot while she was a barmaid at the pub.

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