A family-of-three were gutted when they made a 50 mile trip to visit a real life Emmerdale village and it turned out to be nothing like they'd hoped. Chris King and Zoe Brodie travelled to Esholt, a village near Guiseley, Leeds, from Rotherham to see the area that the soap is modelled on.
They took their two-year-old son with them for a fun family day. Chris and Zoe were looking forward to see the location, which was used to film Emmerdale’s external shots from 1976 to 1996 - filming then moved to Harewood, where a replica was built.
The village has the real-life Woolpack pub, featured in the show, and frequently had fans visiting on coach tours before the pandemic. But Chris and Zoe were left bitterly “disappointed” by their visit in the rain on Thursday, Leeds Live reports.
Zoe, a social care worker, said: “It’s really disappointing, it’s nothing like Emmerdale.”
Chris, a lorry driver, added: “It is but from 25 or 30 years ago. It looks like the Emmerdale from the 90s. We thought we’d have a look around, recognise it all and have some food.”
The dreary and cold weather did not help. They were also disappointed The Woolpack wasn’t serving food on the day of their visit.
The couple has three children in total, aged 21, 14 and two. They spent their time wandering around the small village with their youngest son Ronnie in his pram and a big umbrella, looking at the sites and hoping to recognise locations from the show.
Zoe said: “We didn’t know what to expect, we thought it was going to be a bit bigger. It’s bigger on the telly I suppose, it always looks bigger on the telly.
“We thought we’d see a few things that were familiar, like oh here’s where somebody [an Emmerdale character] lives, you know what I mean? Or this is where the garage is but there’s not anything like that.
“It is a bit disappointing. We are a bit like, well this is a bit s***. I mean it’s very picturesque, the buildings are really quaint. If only the weather was better.”
Chris said: “We weren’t really expecting to see the actors as I know they’ve built a set in Leeds, haven’t they? So it’s all filmed over there now. So we weren’t expecting to see the stars or anything like that. I think on the telly now, there are more new builds aren’t there?”
The couple were happy they got to have a picture in front of The Woolpack, however.
When filming took place in the village, the Esholt pub was originally called The Commercial Inn but was changed to The Woolpack as the landlord reportedly grew tired of having to switch the signs over for filming.
External filming originally took place in Arncliffe in the Yorkshire Dales.
Filming today takes place in the Harewood House estate in north Leeds. Filming for the fictional market town of Hotten takes place in Otley.
