Wimbledon Common

Wimbledon Common
Location:	London
First appearance:	The Massacre
Appearances:	TV: Invasion of the Dinosaurs PROSE: Salvation

Wimbledon Common was a public common in London.

History

The TARDIS materialised on the common in on 27 March 1965. There, Dodo Chaplet — who, according to one account of her youth, lived nearby (PROSE: Salvation) — mistook the TARDIS for an actual police box and attempted to get help from it. Instead she met the First Doctor, who promptly whisked her away from London because Steven had advised him policemen were fast approaching the TARDIS. (TV: The Massacre, The Ark)

Seven years later, in 1973, the Third Doctor drove through Wimbledon Common, en route from the temporary UNIT headquarters in West Ealing to Moorgate underground station. There, he narrowly escaped a dinosaur. (TV: Invasion of the Dinosaurs)

Behind the scenes

• Wimbledon Common is a place in the real world that has occasionally been used by the Doctor Who production team for location filming. Portions of "Bell of Doom" and Invasion of the Dinosaurs part 5 were both filmed there.
• The script of "Bell of Doom" does not specifically refer to Wimbledon Common. The novelisation for The Massacre is considerably different from the episode in the way it handles the character of Dodo and also fails to mention Wimbledon Common. Since the episode is missing, it's unclear whether there was some signage to indicate the location. It's up to the linking narration at the end of the audio reconstruction of The Massacre and again at the beginning The Ark to provide the name. On both releases, narrator Peter Purves tells listeners that the TARDIS was indeed on Wimbledon Common in 1966.