Pilkington Glass, St Helens
One of the most striking locations in the new movie is Warehouse 47 on the docks of Liverpool, where Beckett and a troop of SS guards house the counterfeit £350 million that has been shipped into Britain to cripple the economy. “That particular sequence from a location department point of view was a challenge,” said supervising location manager Richard Hill. “Finding a waterway, a warehouse, a dock… that right combination is always going to be a challenge. We ended up splitting the location between the interior of the warehouse, which we shot in St Helens and the waterway ABP Goole. We found this area that we were able to isolate and shoot for two nights there with some pretty heavy-duty sequences.”
Castlefield, Castle Street, Manchester
The Garrison’s exterior can be found of Castle Street, Manchester, while interior shots were filmed in Birmingham. “I love how The Garrison’s evolved subtly over the years,” said Tom Harper, who directed episodes 4, 5 and 6 of the first season before returning for Peaky Blinders’ feature-length outing.
Burton’s Factory, Harehills, Leeds
For the BSA factory that is bombed near the start of the film, location managers transformed a now-disused clothes and fabric manufacturer’s factory in Leeds. The site provided the necessary “quality and texture”, and possessed, says Hill, “a really huge scope” that allowed for “some incredible shots across the rooftops using a drone.”
