76 Totter's Lane

76 Totter's Lane (also known as Totter's Yard) in Shoreditch was the location of the I.M. Foreman scrapyard where, disguised as a police box, the Doctor's TARDIS resided in 1963. Susan Foreman, the Doctor's granddaughter, attended nearby Coal Hill School during this time, and gave the school the junkyard's address as her home address. This raised suspicion in her teacher, Barbara Wright, when Wright followed her home one evening to find the junkyard where a house should be. Later, Wright and another teacher, Ian Chesterton, entered the scrapyard and discovered the TARDIS sitting in it, leading to their life-changing first encounter with the Doctor. (DW: An Unearthly Child) Later in 1963 - but much later from the Doctor's perspective, a fight between a Renegade Dalek and Group Captain Ian Gilmore's Intrusion Countermeasures Group happened there. (DW: Remembrance of the Daleks)

This event more or less inaugurated the beginning of the Shoreditch Incident. Though never stated, we can assume that the Dalek went there because the Renegade Daleks knew the TARDIS had earlier landed in that location.

In 1985, the TARDIS returned to the junkyard in response to a distress signal sent by Lytton. (DW: Attack of the Cybermen), while in 1997, the TARDIS landed in the junkyard once more after the Doctor fell victim to a trap by the Master. (EDA: The Eight Doctors)

There is also an account that suggests the junkyard was also a Gallifreyan space-time event known as I.M. Foreman's One-Species Nongenetically Engineered Travelling Show. (EDA: Interference: Book One, Interference: Book Two)

The name "Totter's Yard" was first used in episode 1 of Logopolis.

Behind the Scenes

In the pilot episode of Doctor Who and in An Unearthly Child, a studio set represented 76 Totter's Lane (both inside and out). In Attack of the Cybermen and Remembrance of the Daleks, actual exterior London locations represented the yard. In the latter story, due to a mistake, the letters on the outside gate say I.M. Forman rather than the original I.M. Foreman spelling seen in An Unearthly Child.