TV crew descends on Wigan mill to film Peaky Blinders

A television crew descended on Eckersley Mills, in the Pier Quarter, to film scenes for the upcoming fourth series of Peaky Blinders.

They were working on a pursuit scene involving two 1920s vehicles driving around the mill. Actor Cillian Murphy, who plays Tommy Shelby in the series, was seen working on the set.

The action was watched on Friday afternoon by Eric Lloyd, director of KMS Motorsport, which is based near the mills on Swan Meadow Industrial Estate.

He said: “It was good. I have watched the video and it’s transformed what we see every day and taken it back in time.”

He was particularly interested in the vintage vehicles used for the scenes.

He said: “It was interesting to see all the cars. Obviously that’s our forte.

“Some of the old cars had wooden floors and I was quite taken aback by it.”

Mr Lloyd, who took these photographs on the set, said he had watched several series of Peaky Blinders.

And he is looking forward to seeing the scenes from Eckersley Mills as part of the programme.

“I have watched seasons one and two and then just watched season three.

“I’m looking forward to season four, which they have filmed here,” he said.

Tiger Aspect Productions had informed residents and businesses near Swan Meadow Industrial Estate about their plans for filming.

There were security guards stationed at the mill complex to help people moving around the site.

Peaky Blinders is a gangster drama series set in Birmingham after the First World War.

It focuses on the Peaky Blinders gang and stars Cillian Murphy as Tommy Shelby, the gang’s leader.

The broadcast date for the fourth series has not yet been announced, but it is rumoured to be later this year.

Wigan Pier’s giant mills are a popular haunt as locations for both film and television programmes.

For several years Trencherfield Mill was the backdrop to the BBC drama Clocking Off starring Robert Glenister, Sarah Lancashire and Christopher Eccleston.

And both it and the neighbouring Eckersley Mills were used extensively in the late 1980s for filming of the Tony Palmer film Testimony: a biopic on the life of the Soviet composer Dmitri Shostakovich played by Sir Ben Kingsley.

The giant steam engine and the working looms at Trencherfield Mill appeared in dramatic musical interludes while Eckersley Mills’ interiors doubled as a music conservatoire classroom and Stalin’s office.

Earlier this year Wigan Council granted an extension to long-held plans to convert the giant complex, some of which is now derelict, into homes, a hotel and leisure facilities.