A working pier feeds a flat esplanade below Victorian shopfronts climbing Union Street.
What Ryde looks like
runs out from the esplanade on cast iron columns and girders, a timber planked promenade open to pedestrians and vehicles. A separate railway pier runs alongside it, carrying electric trains out to a covered platform at the pier head station. A castellated hotel faces the pier across the junction, built in grey stone with crenellated parapets and a corner turret. Beyond it the esplanade continues flat and open, past a marina and a stretch of beach toward Appley.
climbs steeply from the esplanade toward the upper town, a continuous run of two and three storey shops in stucco or red brick. Parapets hide the roofline above shopfronts with panelled pilasters, most of the buildings dating from the 1820s to the 1840s.
The , a covered shopping passage from 1836, opens off Union Street partway up the hill. rises behind the rooftops with a 177 foot spire, and the former stands nearby on Lind Street.
Side streets off the hill carry smaller terraces in red brick and white render, East Street and Castle Street among them, climbing the same slope away from the esplanade. Cars line the kerb on these streets, and white rendered Victorian villas with bow windows appear further along the hill.
Shot in Ryde
That'll Be the Day used Meaders Road and the Cross Street corner of Union Road for the film's October 1972 shoot, trading on an Isle of Wight look that had barely moved on from the 1950s. Ryde Pier itself has carried its own productions since, including the film Fragile, a BBC Countryfile visit for the pier's 200th anniversary, and the BritBox series The Beast Must Die.
That'll Be the Day
Meaders Road and the Cross Street corner of Union Road, both shot during the same October 1972 production for scenes set in the late 1950s.
That'll Be the Day, 1973
Played the late 1950s
That'll Be the Day shot its MacLaine family shop and home scenes on Meaders Road during the October 1972 production. A young Jim MacLaine watches his father return from the war outside the shop, and a later scene has Jim showing his mother a van he has bought for the family business on the same stretch of road. Street View
That'll Be the Day, 1973
Played the late 1950s
That'll Be the Day used the cafe on Cross Street at the corner of Union Road as the Caribou, where Terry and Jim meet. Street View
Manly's Corso runs from its ferry wharf up to the shops in the same pier to high street sequence that Ryde has, with a similar flat run of two storey shopfronts. Ryde's buildings are Victorian stucco and brick rather than Manly's mid century shopfronts, which shows up in close framing. Keep the comparison to the wide walk from the water. Close shots of brick and window detail will separate the two architectures quickly. Try searching pier to high street now.
Weymouth, Dorset, England
Weymouth's seafront terraces are the same Georgian and early Victorian stucco run as Ryde's esplanade, built across a similar span of decades. The Esplanade there curves along the beach rather than meeting a working pier head on, which changes the angle a pier approach can be shot from. Shoot the stucco terraces from the promenade rather than the pier end to keep the match. Try searching stucco seafront terraces now.
Southsea in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England
Southsea's seafront has the same Victorian terraces behind a working pier, with Clarence Parade carrying the same pier to esplanade walk that Ryde has. The pier itself is wider and later Victorian than Ryde's 1814 structure, which is visible in the ironwork up close. Favour the esplanade terraces over the pier itself if the ironwork needs to read as early nineteenth century. Try searching pier to esplanade walk now.
