Written by on Nov 8, 2013. Posted in On Location

Period TV drama The Mill to film second series on location in Cheshire

Darlow Smithson Productions (DSP) will return to the historic Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire, northern England, to film a second series of period drama The Mill. The new series will move forward in the mill’s history and chart the lives of workers from the late 1830s.

“We are delighted that Channel 4 has decided to re-commission The Mill,” said Emily Roe, Creative Director at DSP: “It was a passion project for DSP from the start and we are enormously grateful that Channel 4 had the vision and courage to back it. The collaboration of the history and drama departments has been inspiring. We are really excited about the rich vein of social history we are tapping into for series two.”

The Mill’s story is taken from its own historical records, which details the lives of 300 adults and pauper children who worked at the factory in the mid-19th Century at the tail-end of England’s Industrial Revolution.

Six weeks of filming took place at Quarry Bank Mill for the first series, although scenes set inside the mill were in fact filmed in Manchester as the real factory floor couldn’t be easily converted from its contemporary function as a museum.

British period dramas have had a surge in popularity since the international success of Downton Abbey. Period productions from the BBC have included The Village in the Peak District, and crime dramas Peaky Blinders that doubled Leeds for Birmingham and Ripper Street, which doubles Dublin for Victorian London. The more modern Dancing on the Edge shot in London and the West Midlands.

We are delighted that Channel 4 has decided to re-commission The Mill. It was a passion project for DSP from the start.

Emily Roe, Darlow Smithson Productions

A major TV miniseries of War and Peace, set in early 19th-Century Russia, is currently being developed by BBC Cymru Wales and Lookout Point.

(The Mill production still: Channel 4; Quarry Bank Mill photo: NTPL/John Millar)