St Cedd's College
St Cedd's College was a college in Cambridge University, a respected institute of higher education on Earth.
History[[edit] | [edit source]]
The Time Lord criminal Salyavin, one of the Doctor's boyhood heroes, was a fellow of St Cedd's College from the late 17th century, holding the chair of Regius Professor of Chronology under the name Professor Chronotis. His apartments, Room 314, were really his TARDIS. (WC: Shada)
In 1762, Sabbath Dei appeared alive and well in Cambridge the morning after his apparent drowning in the River Thames, (PROSE: The Adventuress of Henrietta Street) having been transported to a seemingly dimensionally transcendental room at St Cedd's College by the Council of Eight. The Council met with Sabbath in that same bigger-on-the-inside room in 1782 and recruited him in their war against the Eighth Doctor. (PROSE: Sometime Never...)
In 1958, (WC: Shada) St Cedd's was visited by the First Doctor. (PROSE: Cambridge Previsited)
The Doctor took an honorary doctoral degree at St Cedd's in 1960 and was known to college porter Wilkin. Accounts differed as to whether it was in his fourth or eighth incarnation, (WC: Shada; PROSE: Shada) although the Sixth Doctor recalled visiting St Cedd's and being friends with Wilkin. (PROSE: Business Unusual) The Eleventh Doctor once mentioned to Alice Watson that he had gone to St Cedd's. (AUDIO: The Time Machine)
Chemistry student Chris Parsons studied at St Cedd's College in the late 1970s. (WC: Shada)
In October 1979, the Fourth Doctor and Romana II visited St Cedd's College to see Chronotis, but arrived when he wasn't available. To pass time, they went punting on the canal alongside the college, (AUDIO: Shada) whereupon they were abducted by Borusa's Time Scoop (TV: The Five Doctors) and trapped in the Time Vortex. (PROSE: Punting) Some accounts indicate the Doctor and Romana left Cambridge following this abduction and that the Eighth Doctor and President Romana II visited Chronotis in lieu of their past selves; (WC: Shada) others indicate this abduction didn't happen and the Doctor and Romana visited Chronotis after punting. (PROSE: Shada) The Eleventh Doctor had hazy memories of his fourth incarnation visiting Cambridge with Romana. (COMIC: The One)
By 2008, Dr John Winters had taken a degree at St Cedd's. (GAME: Torchwood Mission Game)
In the 2030s, William Haybourne was appointed to a chair at St Cedd's shortly before his death. (PROSE: Good Companions)
Undated events[[edit] | [edit source]]
At some point, it was announced in the St Cedd's College Newsletter that Professor Liz Shaw had returned from Sabbatical and was going to give one year's "Fendelman Lecture", entitled "Making Genes Fit: Mankind's Hidden History". (PROSE: Greyhound)
Behind the scenes[[edit] | [edit source]]
- Douglas Adams reused St Cedd's, along with the character of Professor Chronotis, for his novel Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency. The Professor in Dirk Gently, though, is not identified as a Time Lord, nor is his time machine identified as a TARDIS, though the practice of omitting certain details of a character's biography is common with many DWU characters like Iris Wildthyme.
- St Cedd's is based somewhat on Adams's own college, St John's.
St Cedd's College ... owes a little to my memories of St John's College, Cambridge, although I've also borrowed indiscriminately from other colleges as well. The point is that St Cedd's College is a completely fictitious assemblage, and no correspondence is intended between any institutions or characters in this book and any real institutions or people, living, dead, or wandering the night in ghostly torment.
- Adams went to school in Brentwood where there is a St Cedd's Church. Saint Cedd brought Christianity to Essex.
- For Shada, scenes at St Cedd's were filmed on location at Emmanuel College.
External links[[edit] | [edit source]]
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