Stella Price (Michelle Collins) is about to join an exclusive club; people who’ve owned the nation’s favourite hostelry.

As we’ll see in the New Year, when Steve McDonald’s (Simon Gregson) finances plummet downhill, he has to take desperate measures to get some cash, so he decides to sell the pub.

And Stella’s only too willing to take it off his hands.

While appearing on Lorraine, Michelle said, “I’ve had my name above the door for quite a while now as manager, but now she’s actually going to own it.

“They [Stella and Karl] struggle to get the money together to get a mortgage. And they’re turned down by a few people because they’re ‘too old’.

“But then you’ll see what happens. It’s quite exciting, being the owner of The Rovers.”

Indeed it must be, especially when you know of the pub’s history, which we’ll take a look at…

It began its life in 1902, and was called Rover’s Return, after one of Manchester’s most famous pubs which existed in Withy Grove until 1958 when it was demolished.

The pub is of course on the corner of Coronation Street – which itself was named as it was built in the Coronation year of Edward VII.

In 1918, the apostrophe was removed from the pub’s name, making it The Rovers Return, and when Coronation Street began broadcasting in 1960, the signage of the pub read ‘The Rovers Return’, but at some point was changed to read ‘Rovers Return Inn.’

Here’s a list of the pub’s former owners…

Jim Corbishley: 1902–19
George Diggins: 1919–37
Jack and Annie Walker: 1937–84
Billy Walker: 1984
Bet and Alec Gilroy: 1985–95
Jack and Vera Duckworth: 1995–98
Natalie Barnes: 1998–2000
Fred Elliott, Mike Baldwin and Duggie Ferguson: 2001–06
Liz and Steve McDonald: 2006–11

And the pub has been at the heart of the show’s storylines of course, and as such, it’s been subjected to having stuff crash into it, fires, and deaths within its walls, the first of which was poor old Martha Longhurst in 1964. She had a heart attack and died in the Snug.

Here’s a clip of the old dear drinking her last…

The second similar death in the pub was that of Ray Langton, who passed away sitting in a booth in 2005.

A lorry crashed into the pub in 1979, and a fire broke out in it in 1986…

Here’s a clip of the fire…

And the lorry crash…

I wonder what tragedies and/or joys the pub will undergo now that Stella’s to be the landlady?