The name comes from the Ye Olde Rovers Return in Withy Grove, Manchester, a 14th-century building that operated as a licensed public house but ceased to be so in 1924 and was demolished in 1958.

[2] When Lieutenant Philip Ridley returned from active service in the Boer War, the pub was named in his honour.

The change of décor in February 2008 was a storyline in the show, in which Liz McDonald's (Beverley Callard) husband Vernon Tomlin (Ian Reddington) hired friends to redecorate.

A few weeks later, Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire) commented to Jed Stone (Kenneth Cope) that the local pub had "recently" been redecorated.

The fictional timeline proceeds as follows: Episode 357, transmitted: 13 May 1964 In 1964, the producership of Coronation Street was handed to the young and enthusiastic Tim Aspinall.

Since it had been fully networked across the various ITV regions in 1960, Coronation Street had never been out of the top ten ratings of the week (that continues 61 years on).

In the pre-video recorder days, viewers were forced to choose what to watch, and, as a consequence, Coronation Street began to lose the ratings.

On the night of her death, the credits rolled in silence for the very first time (something that would later become the norm whenever a character was "killed off"), with the rooftop scene replaced by a close up of the snug table that contained a sherry glass, a passport and Martha's famous NHS spectacles.

Episode 1893, transmitted: 7 March 1979 Deirdre Langton (Anne Kirkbride) wheeled her young daughter Tracy (Christabel Finch) down to The Rovers in her pram.

Inside the pub, Alf Roberts (Bryan Mosley) had been sitting with friend, Len Fairclough (Peter Adamson) in front of the window.

The snatcher was a crazed young woman called Sally Norton (Yvonne Nicholson) who had become obsessed with Tracy.

Inside, Bet had finally woken up and raced out of her bedroom to attempt to escape, only to find her exit down the stairs blocked by flames that leapt up at her from the hallway.

She released a blood-curdling scream and ran back into the bedroom, fearing for her life, and collapsed unconscious, overcome from the smoke, before she could reach the window.

Julie Goodyear later revealed that her nightdress, supposedly fire-proofed, had, in fact, caught fire during filming of the scene, and she was in genuine danger.

Breaking with convention, the episode ended not with Bet fighting for her life, which would have been the usual soap opera cliché, but the pub itself, which Newton and Ridley thought was not worth saving and initially intended to demolish.

In February 2008, barmaid Violet Wilson (Jenny Platt) gave birth in the pub to Dylan who was fathered by gay barman Sean Tully (Antony Cotton).

Landlady Liz McDonald (Beverley Callard), Eileen Grimshaw (Sue Cleaver) and Vernon Tomlin (Ian Reddington) were present at the birth.

Norris Cole (Malcolm Hebden) and Emily Bishop (Eileen Derbyshire) came into the restaurant to tell everyone about the fire, and Karl discovered Stella was upstairs in one of the pub's bedrooms, so he went back in to save her.

The fire caused significant damage and caused financial problems for Stella meaning that she could not afford to hire Owen Armstrong (Ian Puleston-Davies) to do the refurb but after a failed attempt of offering Owen half the pub in exchange for the refurb, Stella's mother Gloria (Sue Johnston) paid him the £80,000 required to complete the work.

In a 2021 episode of podcast, Something Rhymes with Purple, 'Torquemada', Susie Dent and Gyles Brandreth discuss cryptic crosswords.