The Jetty may have only arrived on our screens this week, though we've made swift work of the gripping BBC drama. A compelling four-part crime series, the show grapples with questions around consent, grooming and sexual morality in a post #MeToo landscape.
Starring Doctor Who actor Jenna Coleman and featuring House of the Dragon's Tom Glynn-Carney, the new series sees Coleman's character Detective Manning investigating the link between a fire in a holiday home and its connection to an old missing person case.
Set in a scenic Lancashire lake town, Coleman previously spoke about how the series' filming locations mirror its narrative, explaining "So much of the show is about water and echoes, memories and reflection. The themes of the show are really echoed by the setting of the lake."
But where is The Jetty filmed? Here, we get into all of the BBC drama's filming locations.
Where is The Jetty filmed?
The Jetty was filmed between September and December 2023, and though it was set in Lancashire, many of the show's filming locations are actually near Manchester and Yorkshire.
Other areas such as Calderdale, Sowerby Bridge, Ripponden, and the town of Todmorden also feature in the series.
Providing an insight into the choices for filming locations, the show's executive producer Elizabeth Kilgariff said "The setting was a very changeful place. We were filming near Lancashire, in the winter essentially, so it's quite wild. There's a rawness to it, but there's so much beauty as well. There's also something dangerous about the setting."
She adds that the vision for the town was never to be “a sort of lovely chocolate box kind of a place”, instead explaining “We wanted it to feel real but also slightly elevated and the lake really gives us that. It's a very beautiful but raw and wild place.”
The Jetty filming locations
Hollingworth Lake makes an eerily stunning focal point for much of the series, with the lake having also been used as a location for ITV's Ridley.
A 130-acre reservoir in Littleborough near Manchester, Hollingworth Lake was originally the main water source for Rochdale Canal before being redeveloped as a tourist resort in the 60s.
Though there was already a jetty at the tourist destination before the series was filmed, the production team behind the BBC crime series built another temporary structure especially to allow them to film on the lake.
On their decision to use Hollingworth Lake as a focal point, Kilgarriff said “As soon as we saw it, we knew it was right. It’s a particularly cold and deep lake that has a real air of mystery about it. First thing in the morning there would be a mist hanging over the water and swans gliding through it. It was hard to imagine a more beautiful place.”
As The Jetty draws to a close, we see DC Manning confront multiple suspects at the local pub, with the Hollingworth Lake Rowing Club providing a backdrop for these interactions.
Kilgarriff explains, “It has this amazing window overlooking the lake which meant that even inside, the lake is a presence, a backdrop to the characters’ conversations. The pull of the water is always there.”
The police station you see in The Jetty was created specifically for filming, with the crew building a set within a Manchester building close to where the show's creator Cat Jones grew up.
