Wood Lane tube station

You may be looking for the in-universe location or the newer White City tube station.

Wood Lane tube station, also referred to in some reference sources as the old White City station, was a filming location for the Doctor Who season 2 story The Dalek Invasion of Earth ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Invasion of Earth (TV story)"].

History

Pre-filming

Wood Lane station was opened in May 1908 to serve the Franco-British Exhibition and the Summer Olympics of that year. It closed on 22 November 1947. The Dalek Invasion of Earth ^[+]Loading...["The Dalek Invasion of Earth (TV story)"] featured the remains of posters from 1947 still hanging on the walls, advertising Princess Elizabeth Day for Needy Children and various London stage productions of that year.

Filming

On 24 August 1964, Verity Lambert's secretary Val Speyer received a phone call from a Mr Ratledge of London Transport regarding the location filming due to take place at Wood Lane the following day. Ratledge informed Speyer that he would open the station on arrival at 9.30am.

Filming at Wood Lane station for the first episode "World's End" occurred as planned on the second day of filming for the serial on 25 August. Taking part in the day's filming were all four members of the regular cast, Robert Aldous playing an insurgent, Martyn Huntley and Peter Badger playing Robomen, stunt double Peter Diamond and an unrecorded actor doubling for Bernard Kay as Carl Tyler in a couple of shots where he is seen carrying the injured Susan. Wood Lane station was one of two locations at which material was filmed that day, the other being St Katharine's Docks. Of the main cast, Jacqueline Hill and Carole Ann Ford featured in the scenes shot in and around Wood Lane while William Hartnell and William Russell primarily featured in the parts filmed at St Katharine's Docks.

The sequences shot at Wood Lane depicted Barbara following the insurgent into the London Underground as well as Barbara following Tyler and Susan through a sub-level passageway. Specific places featured in these scenes included the London Transport boilerhouse and the steps leading down from the surface to the passage connecting Underground platforms 3 and 4.

Location filming for the serial continued two days later on 27 August with shooting at several sites including Hammersmith Bridge.

Post-filming

Wood Lane station was demolished between 2003 and 2005 though it had been announced that a shopping centre and bus station were to be built on the site as early as 1994, with demolition originally due in summer 1996. One section of the frontage was dismantled for display at the London Transport Museum. A new Wood Lane tube station on the Hammersmith & City line opened in October 2008.

The boilerhouse, known as the Dimco buildings when paired with the engine house, was in the ownership of the BBC by 2003. The location had previously doubled for the interior of the British Museum in the 2001 film The Mummy Returns. In November 2008, the White City bus station opened, the station having been built around the existing Dimco buildings.