An Egyptian Revival mill front on Marshall Street, and the disused viaduct The ABC Murders and The Couple Next Door filmed under.
What Holbeck looks like
stands behind iron railings on Marshall Street, a stone Egyptian temple front with rows of papyrus capital columns and a carved winged sun disk under the cornice. Faded lettering across the entablature still reads TEMPLE WORKS.
Water Lane runs past the mill's red brick sheds and a walled, paved yard cleared for parking, with a brick railway viaduct crossing in the distance. Marshall's Mills continues the block in taller brick, five storeys of arched windows behind a stone boundary wall and a bare tree at the kerb.
Media Centre, red brick with a tall square chimney and a glazed upper storey, occupies the foundry's old block on Water Lane. , built as a pin factory between 1864 and 1866 with its ornate towers added between 1866 and 1919, stands a short walk north on Globe Road.
Brick railway viaducts cross Sweet Street West and on tall arches, with a footpath running straight through one dark arch off Water Lane. The older streets keep their original grid, hemmed by soot darkened brick walls under the arches and chain link security fencing around the cleared yards.
A working engine shed and carriage sidings sit off Whitehall Road, grey steel cladding and parked rolling stock behind palisade fencing. Sidings fan out toward the running lines, with a housing tower rising above the trees beyond the depot gates.
Shot in Holbeck
The disused Holbeck Viaduct crosses Whitehall Road, Sweet Street West and Silver Street on tall brick arches, closed to trains since 1988. The BBC's The ABC Murders filmed extras in 1930s police uniforms under its arches off Whitehall Road, and Channel 4's The Couple Next Door shot a motorbike swap on Silver Street beneath the same structure.
Holbeck Viaduct
Two crews used two different arches of the same disused viaduct, three years apart.
The ABC Murders, 2018
Played a Leeds street beneath a railway viaduct, Yorkshire, England, 1933
The BBC series dressed extras as 1930s police officers under the arches of the disused viaduct off Whitehall Road. The photograph shows a different, freely licensed arch of the same disused viaduct rather than this exact one. Street View
The Couple Next Door, 2023
Silver Street under the viaduct
The Channel 4 thriller shot a motorbike swap on Silver Street, passing directly beneath the disused viaduct's girder span. Parked cars and brick walls line the street on both sides of the crossing. Street View
What Holbeck can double for
Kelham Island in Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Kelham Island's red brick cutlery and steel foundries went up from the 1820s, close in age and material to the Round Foundry's own brick sheds. The River Don frontage gives it the same working waterway edge as Holbeck's viaducts and becks. Kelham Island's foundry yards sit lower and denser than Holbeck's, so wider shots need careful framing to avoid the newer flats built in among them. Try searching red brick foundry yard now.
Ancoats' cotton mill quarter dates from the 1790s to the 1830s, the same red brick and scale as Marshall's Mills, with tall rows of arched windows and canal side loading bays from the same period. Ancoats' mills run taller and its canal is a constant background element Holbeck does not have, so canal side shots need swapping for a street or yard angle. Try searching brick cotton mill quarter now.
Paterson's brick silk mills date from the 1870s and give a comparable red brick mill row for a production that needs an American period mill town without crossing the Atlantic. Paterson's raceway canals and wider American streets are the giveaway in any wide shot, so tight mill facade framing holds the illusion better. Try searching brick silk mill row now.
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