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A huge new period drama shot in Huddersfield is to air early in the New Year.

ITV’s newest period drama Jericho will premiere on Thursday, January 7.

And the director hopes it could be the first of a run lasting several years.

The eight-part series - which was filmed in various parts of Huddersfield - will be screened at 9pm. The first episode will run for 90 minutes to set the scene.

Jericho is set in Yorkshire of the 1870s and follows the lives of people who set up a shanty town of that name.

The inhabitants were pioneers, settlers and outcasts who come together to build a huge railway viaduct.

In pictures: Jericho filming in Golcar

That has prompted the Radio Times to dub it “Britain’s first Western”.

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The drama series was created by Steve Thompson and stars Jessica Raine (Line Of Duty and Call The Midwife), Hans Matheson (The Tudors), Clarke Peters (The Wire), Mark Addy (Game Of Thrones), Lorraine Ashbourne (The Syndicate), Amy James-Kelly (Coronation Street), Daniel Rigby (From There to Here) and Jeany Spark (Wallander).

Mark Addy in ITV drama Jericho

The director is Paul Whittington, who previously helmed such ITV dramas as Cilla and The Widower.

Thompson told Radio Times: “It is I suppose like a British western. The western is a very broad church because we have seen some very violent westerns like those by Sam Peckinpah but also Little House on the Prairie is a western too. So that is quite a wide spectrum.

“I was inspired by westerns like Shane, which are not about cowboys, they are about settlers and the people, specifically about the woman being central to that and the family’s life. Shane I think was a huge inspiration. So yes there are aspects of it.

“But for me what is exciting is that I have never seen a British western or a British frontier story. Actually there was a frontier, they did go out and conquer the frontier. I think the originality of that is very exciting.”

ITV drama Jericho

A large part of the filming was done in Rockingstone Quarry near Outlane, which is owned by Huddersfield firms Johnsons Wellfield.

Production teams built the shanty town at the heart of the storyline.

They had to get special permission from Kirklees Council to construct the set and also to allow explosions as part of the filming.

Ben Sweet of North Light Film Studios, of Armitage Bridge, helped arrange many of the locations which also included the Colne Valley Museum at Golcar.

He said: “The dramatic landscapes are exactly what was wanted”.

Clarke Peters in ITV drama Jericho

Co-producer Angie Daniell said: “The work we have done in Huddersfield was at key locations, especially the quarry near Outlane, the moorland and the film studios.

“We were aiming for an epic with big, dramatic land and skyscapers and that is what we got. That’s why it has been so good to film here.”

Meanwhile, filming is continuing on the second series of the gritty police drama Happy Valley, which has again featured many scenes shot in Huddersfield and Brighouse.

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Some parts of the outdoor filming have been completed.

Con O’Neill, one of the new actors who has joined the Happy Valley cast, tweeted: “It’s a wrap”.