Halifax locations used in Netflix drama The English Game

With the likes of Happy Valley, Ackley Bridge and Gentleman Jack already putting Calderdale on the TV map, a new Netflix drama filmed at locations in the borough.

The English Game, by Downton Abbey creator Julian Fellowes, follows the rise of football in the Victorian age and much of it was filmed in Yorkshire.

Film crews were spotted last summer.

In the series, characters can be seen training at Manor Heath Park and eagle eyed viewers may have also spotted Brackenbed Lane.

Film crews were also spotted in Sowerby Bridge.

A lot of the action was filmed in Saltaire. The site was used to stand in for the Lancashire mill town of Darwen, and several shops on Victoria Road were transformed into traditional Victorian grocers, butchers and bakers.

Stately home scenes were filmed at Broughton Hall, a country estate near Skipton and Keighley Station, on the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway heritage line, also features.

The English Game has two main characters who represent both sides of the class divide.

In the 19th century, the sport was dominated by teams of ‘old boys’ who had attended public schools such as Eton, Harrow and Charterhouse.

By the 1870s, factories and mills in the northern industrial cities began to field teams of employees.

However, they found themselves at a disadvantage, as the ‘gentlemen’ from the southern clubs had more leisure time in which to train, whereas the northern players worked long hours.

The solution was to pay players, a controversial move at the time.