Powell Estate
The Powell Estate was a council estate in the London Borough of Southwark where Rose and Jackie Tyler and Mickey Smith lived.
It had two towers of sixteen floors, unofficially called Enoch and Powell, with six flats per storey rising above a squat quadrant with shops on the ground level including a chemist, a newsagent, Dev the bookie's and Chicken Shack & Rack. (PROSE: Rose)
Location
- For a detailed out-of-universe explanation, please see the behind the scenes section.
The exact location of the Powell Estate varied between accounts.
According to some, the estate was located in Kennington, (PROSE: Rose Tyler, TV: Rose, Aliens of London, et ) but according to others, it was located in Peckham, (COMIC: Silver Scream, PROSE: Downtime: Child of the New World, AUDIO: Ghosts) with its nearest station being Peckham Rye. (AUDIO: Ghosts)
Either way, it was located in the London Borough of Southwark. (TV: Father's Day) Its postcode was SE15 7GO (TV: Army of Ghosts, PROSE: Meet Rose)
Residents
Between 2005 and 2006, its residents included Rose and Jackie Tyler, Mickey Smith, (TV: Rose) Arianna, Jolene, Gemma, (AUDIO: Retail Therapy) Trisha Delaney, Rosita, Yasmin, Henry, Frank, Doris, Bill, Maxine, Mrs Boufakis, (AUDIO: Wednesdays For Beginners) Mrs McGregor, Mrs Pye, Darren, (PROSE: Winner Takes All) Sandra, Jason and Tina. (TV: The Christmas Invasion)
History
In 1879, Queen Victoria knighted future resident Rose Tyler as "Dame Rose of the Powell Estate" before exiling her from the British Empire. (TV: Tooth and Claw)
The Powell Estate was built in 1973. The two towers were unofficially called Enoch and Powell under the mistaken belief that Enoch Powell MP had christened the estate when in actuality it was named after the developer's wife's mother, Mary Jane Powell, who had died in 1951. (PROSE: Rose)
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While trying to siphon off of the Tenth Doctor's emotional pain, the Reach deposited him at the Powell Estate shortly before its opening. (COMIC: Revolving Doors)
On several occasions during the 1990s, Captain Jack Harkness, who travelled with the Ninth Doctor and Rose Tyler for some time, visited the Powell Estate to watch Rose grow up, but did not approach her to avoid disrupting her timeline. (TV: Utopia)
The Ninth Doctor visited the Powell Estate in 1998 after buying Rose a red bicycle for Christmas. (PROSE: The Red Bicycle)
In September 2004, Len Cawl and Sid Adarsh stashed the kidnapped teenagers, Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart and Conall Wilson, in a flat in Bucknall House, and talked about a woman who lived below them called Jacks, who had a gobby teenage daughter. (PROSE: Downtime: Child of the New World)
Jackie Tyler first moved into 48 Bucknall House (TV: Love & Monsters) at the Powell Estate in the late 1980s with her husband Pete. It was there that their daughter Rose grew up. (TV: Father's Day, Doomsday) River Song briefly moved into number 23 in 2007. (AUDIO: R&J)
The Tenth Doctor, just before regenerating, made a final visit to the Powell Estate on 1 January 2005. He observed Rose and Jackie, months before he first met them in their timeline. He also exchanged a few words with Rose before staggering back to the TARDIS, parked nearby, to regenerate. (TV: The End of Time)
Powell Estate Motors was a business located around the Powell Estate by 2007. (TV: Love & Monsters)
The Powell Estate became the site of considerable excitement from the years 2005 to 2007 after Rose Tyler encountered the Ninth Doctor.
The Powell Estate was one of many sites in London and around the world which were invaded by Cybermen from the alternate reality known as "Pete's World" before the Tenth Doctor expelled the invaders into the Void. (TV: Army of Ghosts / Doomsday) As a result of these events, Rose and Jackie were stranded on Pete's World, effectively abandoning their home in the Powell Estate. (TV: Doomsday) Sometime during these events, Suzy Monroe went to the Powell Estate to film the Cybermen, who looked like ghosts. It was broadcasted live on Ghostwatch. After she had filmed several Cybermen Suzy left to have a look at some other viewers' sightings and was attacked by a Cyberman. (GAME: Ghostwatch)
The Tenth Doctor claimed he had picked up his accent from the Powell Estate, when talking to Archie Maplin in 1929. He found common ground with Maplin by noting that the estate was in Peckham, Maplin's home. (COMIC: Silver Scream)
Cleo Proctor grew up at the Powell Estate. (AUDIO: Interrogation)
Behind the scenes
In-universe location
First and foremost, it should be clarified that the scenes for the Powell Estate block of flats were, primarily, filmed at the Brandon Estate in Kennington,[1] and that Kennington is situated on the border of London Borough of Lambeth and London Borough of Southwark. The stairwell[2] and other parts of the estate[3] were also doubled by locations in Cardiff.
The televised stories that featured the Powell Estate seemed to imply that the estate was virtually identical to the Brandon Estate, from geographic location to appearance, perhaps suggesting that the only difference between the real world and the DWU was the name of the estate.
- Firstly, while never explicitly stated on screen, scenes located at Walterley Street in TV: Father's Day show a street sign that names the street as being part of the "London Borough of Southwark". In that episode, Walterley is implied to be a short walk from Jordan Road and the Powell Estate. The scenes on each of these roads were filmed in Cardiff,[3] more than a hundred miles from either the boroughs of Southwark or Lambeth.
- Secondly, the shots of the Slitheen craft in TV: Aliens of London depicts the flight-path following the real-world geography of London; it is seen that the craft flies over the Powell Estate, in the direction of Tower Bridge with the Gherkin towards the top-left. Other Southwark landmarks, such as London City Hall and HMS Belfast, are also seen.
- Thirdly, the effect shot of the camera zooming from space onto Rose's alarm clock at 48 Bucknall House after the opening titles in TV: Rose (reused in the pre titles scene in TV: The Christmas Invasion, this time transitioning to a bauble Jackie picks up at home) shows the geography of Kennington, including the Brandon Estate, the Oval and Kennington Park.
PROSE: Rose Tyler aligns with the televised geography, outright stating that the Powell Estate is located in Kennington. However, newer spin-off media contradicts this, causing issues.
In COMIC: Silver Scream, it is stated that the Powell Estate is located in Peckham. This is reiterated in the novel Downtime: Child of the New World and the audio drama Ghosts. Issue is, apart from contradicting Rose Tyler, is that this location doesn't align with the scenes in Rose, Aliens of London, and The Christmas Invasion, as while still it is within the London Borough of Southwark, it adds around three extra miles and around a 60° angle on the shot of the Powell Estate to Tower Bridge, meaning that several shots in Aliens of London couldn't be possible. No in-universe explanation for this discrepancy has been given As of April 2022[update].
Further complicating matters, the BBC's webpage on Doctor Who from 2005 states that Rose is from SE15, which is Peckham's postcode,[4] whereas the postcodes for Kennington are SE11 and SE17. Furthermore, TV: Army of Ghosts (a story filmed partially on the Brandon Estate and partially in Cardiff) and PROSE: Meet Rose give "SE15 7GO" as her postcode, and the aforementioned Walterley Street sign in Father's Day is also marked as SE15.
