Category: Old Stuff

It’s the final phone box from ‘The War Machines’!

This box features fairly prominently in episode four, as it’s right next to the location where the Doctor and his allies are setting a trap for a War Machine.

The Doctor Who Locations entry places this phone box in Cornwall Gardens Walk – which I could have figured out for myself in this instance seeing as the street signs are displayed fairly prominently in the episode!

Here’s the Street View image: 51°49’66.6″N, 0°18’89.6″W. The phone box is gone – there must have been thousands of K2 boxes in London originally as there are still lots in existence even after so many were removed! However, the distinctive garage door on the left is still intact, as is the lamppost behind which the phone box originally stood.

A rare sighting of the Doctor in front of a non-police phone box!

We’ll move onto a new Doctor Who story next week.

Today we’re looking at another classic phone box that appears in ‘The War Machines’ – this time on location and thus a real in-use phone box.

This box appears later on in the serial, in episode four, once the titular War Machines are out on the rampage around London.

As usual, I used Doctor Who Locations to identify the filming location, which was in Charlotte Place, London.

Here’s the most up-to-date Street View image: 51°51’87.4″N, 0°13’58.4″W. The phone box is sadly long gone, but the Duke of York pub is still thriving (or was in 2019 at any rate).

The restaurant across the street is now the Rathbone Hotel, but the building next to the railings remains fairly unchanged. I love seeing how streets change over time! I just wish that all the classic phone boxes weren’t disappearing in the process…

One last phone box from ‘The War Machines’ next week.

This is the first of three classic phone boxes from the 1966 Doctor Who serial ‘The War Machines’. This was the first serial that was set entirely on contemporary Earth (and in Doctor Who, particularly in the classic series, ‘contemporary Earth’ means ‘contemporary London’). As such, there are lots of scenes shot outdoors on London streets, meaning it was inevitable that we would bump into the odd non-police telephone box along the way.

The first example in the serial, however, was not found on the streets – it appears in studio footage (filmed either at Ealing Studios or Riverside Studios according to Doctor Who Locations) and was thus presumably a prop.

When the characters first emerge from the swinging ‘Inferno’ nightclub, their attention is caught by some strange happenings at the entrance of a nearby warehouse. My attention, meanwhile, was caught by the phone box that appears tucked under the arch next to the warehouse. How very handy for the warehouse employees!

Next week we’ll have a look at one of the ‘real’ phone boxes that features in the location filming for this story.