Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders and Hollyoaks stars who started out as child stars

Soap stars are probably among the most recognised people on TV with them appearing on the small screen four if not five times a week.

But while many of our favourite Coronation Street, Emmerdale, EastEnders, and Hollyoaks stars are now famed for their characters in the ITV Channel 4, and BBC One soaps, many, if not all, of their careers started elsewhere and at a very young age.

Many made their acting debuts in CITV programme Children's Ward. Debuting its first episode in March 1989, the soap opera for kids was shot in Bolton at the Bolton General Hospital, which is now the Royal Bolton Hospital.

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And some of the people included in our list even made early appearances in the soaps they are now famed for being a part of. Here we take a look at a few of the soap stars who started out as child stars.

Jane Danson is best known to viewers for being part of the Battersby clan in Coronation Street. The actress has played Jane Danson in the ITV soap since 1997, joining as part of the 'Neighbours From Hell' alongside dad Les (Bruce Jones), mum Janice (Vicky Entwistle) and sister Toyah (Georgia Taylor).

But her television debut actually a few years early when she starred in Alan Bleasdale series GBH as Eileen Critchley in 1991. Shortly after, in 1995, Jane played one of Children Ward’s regular characters, Paula, from 1995 to 1997.

It was after that she landed her big break in Corrie. But the soap star left the show three years later in 2000, not long after a harrowing storyline that saw her character become a drug addict. After appearing in Always and Everyone and The Bill, where she played the first lesbian police