76 Totter's Lane
76 Totter's Lane (also known as Totter's Yard or Foreman's Yard) was a junkyard in Totter's Lane, in Shoreditch, London, (TV: The Day of the Doctor) post code EC1 5EG (TV: Vampires of Venice) owned by I.M. Foreman. The Doctor's TARDIS, disguised as a police box, resided there for approximately five months in 1963. (TV: "An Unearthly Child")
It was close to Piccadilly Circus. (GAME: Dalek Attack)
History
1960s
The junkyard was one of the forms assumed by the complex space-time event I.M. Foreman's One-Species Nongenetically Engineered Travelling Show, which travelled the universe and assumed new appearances on each planet, "shedding" these forms as it moved on. The show spent a few months on Earth in early 1963 before it moved on, the junkyard and its passing creating a "dent" in space-time that attracted the First Doctor to the junkyard, (PROSE: Interference - Book Two) who were safely deposited there by Time, who knew they would find "a new life" there. (COMIC: The Test of Time)
In 1963, the First Doctor and Susan briefly arrived at the junkyard, before quickly leaving and arriving in 1955 London. When leaving 1955, Susan suggested that they might find themselves back in 1963, a notion which the Doctor called "ridiculous" due to the low probability of that occurring. (PROSE: Losing the Audience) Little did the Doctor know that the pair would eventually end up living in that same junkyard and in the same year. (TV: An Unearthly Child, AUDIO: Hunters of Earth, et al.)
Indeed, in that year, Susan, ended up attending the nearby Coal Hill School. (TV: "An Unearthly Child")
The First Doctor and his granddaughter returned to the junkyard after Mrs Smith, an usherette, kicked the Doctor out of the Ritz Theatre due to the disruption he caused during the showing of a film about the fall of Rome about its inaccuracies. In early 2005, Mrs Smith wrote about her encounter on whoisdoctorwho.co.uk. (PROSE: Have You Seen This Man?)
and gave the school the junkyard's address as her home address. This raised suspicion in her teacher, Barbara Wright, who followed Susan home one evening to find the junkyard where a house should have been. (PROSE: Time and Relative, TV: "An Unearthly Child")
On 22 November 1963, Sarah Jane Smith briefly explored the junkyard and saw the TARDIS before returning to her Aunt Lavinia. (PROSE: Playtime)
Later, Barbara and another teacher, Ian Chesterton, followed Susan home again and entered the junkyard and discovered the TARDIS sitting in it. Hearing Susan's voice inside the TARDIS, Ian and Barbara went inside. Knowing that his ship couldn't be found out, the First Doctor kidnapped Ian and Barbara in the TARDIS, taking Susan away from the 20th century against her wishes. (TV: "An Unearthly Child")
The next day, the Fourth Doctor and K9 Mark II returned to Totter's Lane to retrieve a Heshrax insect which he had been tracking the day that he left. While there, they met Debbie, Susan's best friend from Coal Hill School. Debbie, who turned fifteen that day, was concerned about Susan's sudden disappearance as she knew that Susan would never miss her birthday. She had met the First Doctor on one occasion, but the Fourth Doctor did not recall seeing her before. He also did not remember Susan ever mentioning Debbie, but admitted that he was not always the best listener.
The Doctor offered Debbie the chance to travel with him, telling her that he could show her the crystal temples of Canopus or the signing of the Magna Carta in June 1215 but she declined the opportunity. He told Debbie that Susan decided to stay on 22nd century Earth but then amended this by adding that he chose for her, expressing the hope that this decision was for the best.
For her birthday, he gave Debbie a framed black and white photograph of Ian and Barbara standing by a police box, waving at the camera and hugging each other. The frame contained a plaque that read simply "1965". Debbie was thankful that she met the Doctor as, while she knew that she would never see Susan again, she could at least live her life safe in the knowledge that she was safe in the future rather than spend it wondering what happened to Susan and fearing the worst. (PROSE: Those Left Behind)
Several days later, a battle between a Renegade Dalek and Group Captain Ian Gilmore's Intrusion Counter-Measures Group took place there. It was witnessed by the Seventh Doctor and Ace. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks) Shortly before this, a time disruption had briefly changed history so that the name on the gates said "I M Forman". The Seventh Doctor and Ace later returned here, eighteen minutes before their past selves had arrived, to confirm that the spelling had changed. (PROSE: The Algebra of Ice)
In December, Joseph Galloway, a rag and bone man, was hired by Hawkins, who had rented the junkyard to the Doctor, to clear out the place. While cleaning out the junkyard, Galloway found the Blessing Star in the place where Susan had hid it, and it began bringing him luck. (PROSE: The Rag & Bone Man's Story)
In 1966, the First Doctor returned to Totter's Lane when the TARDIS once again materialised there. (AUDIO: The Perpetual Bond)
1980s
In 1985, the TARDIS returned to the junkyard in response to a distress signal sent by Lytton. (TV: Attack of the Cybermen)
1990s
In 1997, the TARDIS landed in the junkyard once more after the Eighth Doctor fell victim to a trap by the Bruce Master that erased his memory; subconsciously aided by Rassilon, the Doctor was attempting to visit his first incarnation to regain his lost memory, but he entered the wrong temporal coordinates. Sam Jones entered the junkyard to get away from Baz Bailey and his gang, who were swiftly driven off by the Doctor, although he was then taken into custody by police under suspicion of being Baz's supplier. When the Doctor and Sam returned to the junkyard — Sam looking for the Doctor while the Doctor was trying to escape Baz — the Doctor briefly left Sam at Baz's mercy when he returned to the TARDIS, but after regaining his memories he was sent back to the junkyard by Rassilon at almost the exact moment after he left it, where he defeated Baz and left him for the police, Sam diving into the TARDIS before he could leave and swiftly becoming his new companion. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)
21st century
The junkyard still existed in 2013. (TV: The Day of the Doctor)
By October 2021, it had been converted into a car park (AUDIO: The Harvest) and luxury apartments. (AUDIO: Bessie Come Home) The Seventh Doctor kept his TARDIS at parking bay number seventy-six of a carpark on Totter's Lane while investigating the Cybermen at St Gart's Bankside Hospital. By this time, Totter's Lane was a commercially zoned area of Shoreditch which was mostly made up of office blocks. (AUDIO: The Harvest)
23rd century
By 2254, a pub called The Red Lion had been built at 76 Totter's Lane. The Seventh Doctor walked past the pub when he defeated the Daleks in London. (GAME: Dalek Attack)
Alternate timeline
After he was attacked by one of the Valeyard's golems, the Seventh Doctor attempted to travel back to the junkyard to leave Ace with his past self for safety while he went to face his foe, remembering the yard as the last place where he tried to settle down, but this plan failed as he arrived in the alternate timeline created by the Valeyard's use of the Dark Matrix, the junkyard containing no trace of the First Doctor's TARDIS and the Doctor's old keys not opening it, forcing him and Ace to flee when they were attacked by Jacksprites. (PROSE: Matrix)
In an alternate timeline where the Cybermen allied with Rassilon to take over history, they attacked the First Doctor on the day that he was supposed to leave Earth with Susan, Ian, and Barbara. (COMIC: Prologue: the First Doctor)
References
Before going to Logopolis in 1981, the Fourth Doctor and Adric discussed the chameleon circuit being "stuck in Totter's Yard". (TV: Logopolis)
In 1580, the Eleventh Doctor showed a group of "vampires" his library card in place of his psychic paper. The library card listed 76 Totter's Lane as his residence. (TV: The Vampires of Venice)
Behind the scenes
Worlds in Time
- Totter's Lane appeared in the video game Worlds in Time as the place where the TARDIS set in London.
Shooting locations
- 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" of An Unearthly Child. A narrative explanation for this was given in the novel The Algebra of Ice, where a time disruption had briefly altered history, altering the name.
Other junkyards
In the first issue of the TV Comic run of Doctor Who comics, The Klepton Parasites, John and Gillian meet the Doctor while he has his TARDIS parked at a yard clearly modeled off of 76 Totter's Lane.
In the Doctor Who Confidential episode Bigger on the Inside, Neil Gaiman reads from his script for the episode The Doctor's Wife, in which his stage directions describe the junkyard in the bubble universe as "the Totters Lane at the end of the universe."
Other matters
- The name "Totter's Yard" was first used in part one of Logopolis.
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