Kings Oak was the fictional village in the television serial Crossroads which ran on ITV

ITV

ITV is the major commercial public service TV network in the United Kingdom. Launched in 1955 under the auspices of the Independent Television Authority to provide competition to the BBC, it is also the oldest commercial network in the UK...

 between 1964 and 1988 and returned in 2001 and axed in 2003.

It is sometimes written as King's Oak.

Between 1964 and 1970 most of the scenes of the village were actually all recorded inside the Alpha Television Studios in Aston

Aston

Aston is an area of the City of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Lying to the north-east of the Birmingham city centre, Aston constitutes an electoral ward within the council constituency of Ladywood.-History:...

, Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

. Still photographs would be used to illustrate Kings Oak and its locations during episodes; places used for these pictures included Bournville

Bournville

Bournville is a model village on the south side of Birmingham, England, best known for its connections with the Cadbury family and chocolate – including a dark chocolate bar branded "Bournville". It is also a ward within the council constituency of Selly Oak and home to the Bournville Centre...

, Yardley

Yardley, Birmingham

Yardley is an area in east Birmingham, England. It is also a council constituency, managed by its own district committee.Birmingham Yardley is a constituency and its Member of Parliament is John Hemming.-Features:...

 and Sutton Coldfield

Sutton Coldfield

Sutton Coldfield is a suburb of Birmingham, in the West Midlands of England. Sutton is located about from central Birmingham but has borders with Erdington and Kingstanding. Sutton is in the northeast of Birmingham, with a population of 105,000 recorded in the 2001 census...

.

Tanworth-in-Arden

In 1970 Crossroads production company, ATV

Associated TeleVision

Associated Television, often referred to as ATV, was a British television company, holder of various licences to broadcast on the ITV network from 24 September 1955 until 00:34 on 1 January 1982...

, furnished the serial with the use of an outside broadcast unit (although they were only allowed to use it for a certain number of episodes a year.) This enabled actual filming to take place in and around "Kings Oak" and so a real-life village was sought. Producer Reg Watson

Reg Watson

Reginald James "Reg" Watson AM is an Australian television producer, best known for creating soap operas like Prisoner and Neighbours.-Career:...

 picked the Warwickshire

Warwickshire

Warwickshire is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in the West Midlands region of England. The county town is Warwick, although the largest town is Nuneaton. The county is famous for being the birthplace of William Shakespeare...

 village of Tanworth-in-Arden

Tanworth-in-Arden

Tanworth-in-Arden is a small village located in the county of Warwickshire, England. It is located south-east of Birmingham in the Tanworth-in-Arden parish and is administered by Stratford-on-Avon District Council...

 as the filming location for "Kings Oak".

Tanworth-in-Arden would be used from then on until the programmes end in 1988; actually the final-ever scene in Crossroads takes place at the village green

Village green

A village green is a common open area which is a part of a settlement. Traditionally, such an area was often common grass land at the centre of a small agricultural settlement, used for grazing and sometimes for community events...

.

As well as the village centre being transformed into the fictional Kings Oak, other buildings were also transformed for the series. Tanworth-in-Arden's Bell Inn public house became the Running Stag, St Mary's Church was St Lawrence's and the Tanworth Post Office became the Kings Oak version. Other places within the village used for Crossroads include the exterior of the village general store and the railway station.

"Kings Oak" was supposed to be slightly bigger than Tanworth actually is, and in later years the production crew also used Bristol Road in Selly Oak

Selly Oak

Selly Oak is a residential suburban district in south-west Birmingham, England. The suburb is bordered by Bournbrook and Selly Park to the north-east, Edgbaston and Harborne to the north, Weoley Castle and Weoley Hill to the west, and Bournville to the south...

 as part of the village. This was supposed to be the main shopping front street.

Village history

Kings Oak, according to a 1964 TV World article on the village, is exactly ten miles south of Birmingham.

The Kings Oak Guidebook, as written by Crossroads creator Peter Ling

Peter Ling

Peter Ling was a British writer in many media, but best known for his work in television, where he was the co-creator of the soap opera Crossroads....

, (issued by ATV) brings to light some (fictional) facts about the village:

Originally the Village was called 'Slohtran Ford', which means "marshy ford". The hamlet was originally inhabited by foresters who built their huts at the easiest crossing point for the River Slotter, which runs through the centre of "Kings Oak". The name "Kings Oak" comes from the Civil War

English Civil War

The English Civil War was a series of armed conflicts and political machinations between Parliamentarians and Royalists...

, when King Charles hid there for a night in a giant oak tree.

In 1969 the village of Kings Oak had 750 inhabitants and was administered by its own Rural Council. The village has two churches, St Lawrence's and the Methodist Church.

The three mainstay pubs were The Crown, The Kings Oak and The Running Stag.

Other locations in the village include the Fairlawns Hotel, Crossroads Motel, Ravoli Cinema, Robins Warehouse and a small police station. The village has a housing estate called Kings Hill.

There are a couple of nearby towns and villages to "Kings Oak", the biggest is Heathbury - an industrial town, which is six miles north of the village centre. Also Castlewich and Merryfields are located nearby.

New series

In 2001 Crossroads was revived by Carlton Television

Carlton Television

Carlton Television was the ITV franchise holder for London and the surrounding counties including the cities of Solihull and Coventry of the West Midlands, south Suffolk, middle and east Hampshire, Oxfordshire, south Bedfordshire, south Northamptonshire, parts of Herefordshire & Worcestershire,...

. Despite many aspects of the original series being dropped from the new version, the name of "Kings Oak" was kept as the location of the Crossroads Hotel; however Kings Oak was now a town and looked nothing like its predecessor. The new filming locations were Bingham

Bingham, Nottinghamshire

Bingham is a market town in the Rushcliffe borough of Nottinghamshire, England.-Geography:With a population of around 9,000 people it lies about nine miles east of Nottingham, a similar distance south-west of Newark-on-Trent and west of Grantham. It is situated where the A46 intersects the A52...

 and its market place. Also Redmile

Redmile

Redmile is a village and civil parish in the Melton district of Leicestershire, England, about north of Melton Mowbray and west of Grantham, in the Vale of Belvoir....

 featured as part of the new look town. Both of the Carlton used locations are in Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire

Nottinghamshire is a county in the East Midlands of England, bordering South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west...

.

External links

• Crossroads Locations Further information on the Crossroads Fan Club page
• Kings Oak History The History of the Village and also the Crossroads Motel
• New Series Locations Crossroads2001 website details on the more recent Kings Oak locations