13 Bannerman Road

13 Bannerman Road. (TV: Invasion of the Bane)

13 Bannerman Road or according to some accounts number 21 (TV: Eye of the Gorgon, Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, The Lost Boy) was the address of a house in the London suburb of Ealing. In the early 21st century, it was the home of Sarah Jane Smith and her adopted children Luke and later Sky. It was later the home of Rani Chandra. Before Sarah Jane owned the house, it had belonged to Lavinia Smith, who left it to her..

Features

The house, architecturally, was an older, Tudor bricked home rather unlike the rest of Bannerman Road, which were all modern detached houses. Inside, the living room was quite small and held an old television and objects collected by Sarah Jane Smith in her travels.

There were many bookcases in the house. Among the books were:

• The short stories of H. G. Wells (TV: Invasion of the Bane)
• Rider from Rifle Rock by Gladwell Richardson (TV: Invasion of the Bane)
• The Tumbled House by Winston Graham (TV: Invasion of the Bane)
• French cooking (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
• Dan Dare 9: Terra Nova trilogy by Frank Hampson (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
• UNIT Fighting for Humankind by Sarah Jane Smith. (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
• The Photographeres Library (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
• The Diary Book of Family Cookery (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
• People and Places In Search of Western Europe (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
• Coaching (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
• Computer programming in basics (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
• Encyclopedia of the World (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)
• The Big Book of Dinosaurs (TV: Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?)

The attic

The attic was the largest room in the house, and served as Sarah Jane's home office and base of operations. Several photographs hung there; among them were portraits of Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, Harry Sullivan and K9 Mark III and herself; along with these were old drawings of the Doctor's TARDIS. (TV: Invasion of the Bane) The attic also contained a telescope and a chair for stargazing. (TV: The Last Sontaran)

In the attic there were a lot of alien objects, that Sarah Jane got during her adventures. Some of them were gifts, others Sarah Jane kept safe from aliens who wanted to use them to take over Earth. On the desk Sarah Jane kept all her important documents. Luke Smith, Rani Chandra and Clyde Langer also had their own desk on the attic. Clyde made a lot of drawings on his desk. Luke used his desk for his science projects and Rani made researches on her desk. (WC: CBBC Extra: Attic Padz)

After K9 Mark III broke down and Sarah Jane was unable to repair his future technology, she stored him to a cardboard box in the attic. (TV: School Reunion; PROSE: Moving On) He was repaired when Sarah Jane found the Tenth Doctor, but promptly sacrificed himself in the line of duty. (TV: School Reunion)

When Sarah Jane discovered that the Xylok crystal she had been given by a geologist friend could communicate with her laptop, she followed its plans to build for it a supercomputer in the attic wall, into which the Xylok was integrated. The resulting sentient computer took the name Mr Smith and provided her with access to countless databases, communications systems, and functioned as a research laboratory . (TV: The Lost Boy, Invasion of the Bane)

K9 Mark III's successor, K9 Mark IV, was forced to leave Sarah Jane soon after his arrival, in order to stabilise an artificial black hole in Switzerland. A space-time link in a safe in the attic allowed periodic contact between K9 and his mistress (TV: Invasion of the Bane) and brief teleportation of K9 back to the attic in emergencies. (TV: From Raxacoricofallapatorius With Love, Journey's End, The Lost Boy, The Mad Woman in the Attic)

After K9's mission was complete, the safe became a storage unit for any alien weapon Sarah Jane had acquired. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic, Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith)

Up until September 2010, there was a pillar in the middle of the space. After this time, the top had been removed and it had become a stand on which alien objects could be placed for Mr Smith to scan. (TV: The Nightmare Man)

After occupation of the house passed to Rani Chandra sometime before 2050, Rani made her home office on the same portion of the attic as Sarah Jane had done. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic)

History

13 Bannerman Road was the home of Sarah Jane Smith. With K9 Mark IV gone to control a black hole, she was alone but for her Xylok sentient supercomputer, Mr Smith. On the night after moving in across the road, Maria Jackson saw Sarah Jane communing with the Star Poet in the garden of the house. Days later, Sarah Jane and Maria rescued an artificially grown "teenager" from the Bane; she adopted the boy and named him Luke Smith.

The house suffered minor damage after Davey, a member of the Bane family, was sent to kill Sarah Jane. The front door was ripped off its hinges and a couple of banisters damaged. Soon after, 13 Bannerman Road became home to Luke Smith. (TV: Invasion of the Bane)

13 Bannerman Road served as headquarters from where Sarah Jane, Luke, Clyde and Maria would hunt aliens. There, Alan Jackson was turned to stone by a Gorgon. (TV: Eye of the Gorgon)

The attic served as one of the nodes of the Sub-Wave Network used to guide the Tenth Doctor to Earth after the Daleks had re-located the planet to the Medusa Cascade. (TV: The Stolen Earth)

After Maria left for America, the group met Rani Chandra, who soon found out about Sarah Jane and what she did. (TV: The Day of the Clown)

Luke Smith and K9 left for the University of Oxford, circa September 2010. (TV: The Nightmare Man) In the following spring or summer, an infant was left on the doorstep. The child, an extraterrestrial humanoid, almost immediately aged into a 12 year old. Sarah Jane later adopted her and named the girl Sky Smith. (TV: Sky)

Sarah Jane continued to use her house at 13 Bannerman Road for several decades until she finally retired from defending the Earth and moved away to live peacefully, entrusting the house to an older Rani, who was now married and had grandchildren. (TV: The Mad Woman in the Attic)

Other information

Harriet Jones knew that Sarah Jane Smith lived there. (TV: The Stolen Earth)

Sarah Jane put a key under a flowerpot at the side of the house to allow for emergency entry. (TV: The Last Sontaran)

Chrissie Jackson found her way into the house twice through the same window and commented that "some people never learn." (TV: Eye of the Gorgon and The Last Sontaran)

Behind the scenes

• The shooting location for Bannerman Road is Clinton Road, Penarth, Cardiff. The house used is on the northern corner with Victoria Road (which corners Clinton Road), number 21.
• Unlike the other occasionally seen portions of 13 and 36 Bannerman Road which were filmed on location, Sarah Jane's attic was a purpose-built set and the series' principal standing set. As the ongoing base of operations and information center, the attic served the same narrative purpose as the TARDIS control room on Doctor Who and the Hub on Torchwood.
• In 1987, a Doctor Who story aired titled Delta and the Bannermen.
• In Eye of the Gorgon and The Lost Boy, the house was seen with the location's actual 21 rather than 13 on it. The same error occurs in Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane? in which 21 is clearly visible on the brick wall around the house.

Footnotes