76 Totter's Lane (also known as Totter's Yard or Foreman's Yard) was a junkyard in Shoreditch, London, owned by I.M. Foreman. The Doctor's TARDIS, disguised as a police box, resided there for approximately five months in 1963.

History

1960s

In 1963, the First Doctor watched a film on the fall of Rome and complained it was historically inaccurate. When asked to leave, he was seen heading back towards the junkyard. (WEB: whoisdoctorwho.co.uk)

In 1963, Susan Foreman, the First Doctor's granddaughter, attended the nearby Coal Hill School, 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. (TV: "An Unearthly Child")

In 1963, Sarah Jane Smith briefly explored the junkyard and saw the TARDIS before returning to her aunt Lavinia. (PROSE: Playtime)

The same day, Barbara and another teacher, Ian Chesterton, entered the scrapyard 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")

Later in 1963, a battle between a Renegade Dalek and Group Captain Ian Gilmore's Intrusion Countermeasures Group took place there. (TV: Remembrance of the Daleks)

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 Master. Sam Jones entered the junkyard to get away from Baz Bailey and his gang. (PROSE: The Eight Doctors)

The junkyard was actually a Gallifreyan space-time event known as I.M. Foreman's One-Species Nongenetically Engineered Travelling Show. (PROSE: Interference - Book Two)

2000s

The Ninth Doctor visited Totters Lane soon after his regeneration, where he encountered Steven Hudson. (WEB: whoisdoctorwho.co.uk)

2020s

In October 2021, 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 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)

References

• 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

• Totter's Lane appeared in the video game Worlds in Time as the place where the TARDIS set in London.
• 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.
• The name "Totter's Yard" was first used in part 1 of TV: Logopolis.
• In the Doctor Who Confidential episode Bigger on the Inside, Neil Gaiman reads from his script for the episode TV: 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."