Filming at quarry for Hollyoaks aired

Cast and crew from Hollyoaks descended on Eccleston Delph, near Chorley, over the summer and the exciting scenes have now been aired.

The Channel 4 show used the quarry for scenes which saw the soap’s dodgy detective Sonny Valentine - played by Aaron Fontaine - handcuffed into a car by the programme’s McQueen family.

As the three McQueens - Phoebe, Mercedes and Myra - turned their backs to decide how to give the copper his just desserts the Ford Mondeo he was stuck in started to roll into the water.

The scenes were screened late last week and also showed Phoebe, played by Mandip Gill, dive into the water to find him – but the car had already gone to the bottom, with no sign of the detective.

Shots of police recovering the vehicle from the quarry were also shown.

Eccleston Delph Water Sports Centre which operates from the site had been forced to keep tight lipped over the filming.

Barry Higgins, who runs the dive shop at the centre, said divers who visit the quarry who have recognised the location.

He said: “It’s the second time they have been here. It was used before when they won the award for best stunt – I think this is why they came back, but with a totally different story line.

“It was at one side of the quarry we just closed that end of, we still have everything else going on as normal, we gave them half of it.

“The cast were wandering around here for three days so we did see them.”

On Wednesday night the soap scooped three awards at the Inside Soap Awards, including best actress, sexiest male and best story line for its domestic abuse plot.

It is not the first time Eccleston Delph has been used as a location for Hollyoaks, which is made by Lime Pictures.

Fans may recognise it as the place where a car plunged into water when character Clare Cunningham tried to kill her husband Max in 2007.

The Delph, which ceased to be an active quarry in 1953, also hit the headlines in October 1979 when amateur divers found a handless body badly mutilated to prevent its identification.

The body was that of New Zealand drugs baron Marty Johnstone and its discovery led to a worldwide investigation.

It resulted in members of the so-called Handless Corpse gang being jailed for their parts in the murder and drugs case.

The quarry, on Halfpenny Lane, Eccleston, was 
redeveloped into a scuba diving centre more than 10 years ago.

It was previously filled with sludgy water and abandoned cars, but became one of the most popular open water swimming venues in the region.

It now includes underwater attractions and wrecks, training platforms and is stocked with a variety of fish.