Doctor Who and the Quarries of Stone

Doctor Who recently revealed the casting for its Fourteenth Doctor as the BAFTA-nominated Ncuti Gatwa – a very exciting choice as he will be the first person of colour to take on the role.

While it will be some time before we see Gatwa on our screens as the Doctor, we can indulge your Whovian excitement with some trivia about the show’s classic days, which have roots in our local area: Doctor Who and the quarries of Stone.

In its classic era, the show ran for 26 seasons from its first episode “An Unearthly Child” in 1963 to its final episode “Survival” in 1989. During its runtime, the show became a byword for low-budget sets, props, and costumes, with many critics commenting how remarkable it was that so many alien planets looked like English quarry sites. In many ways this was no exaggeration, as quarries have long been a favourite filming location for many science fiction stories, and several sites in our district made appearances in the Doctor Who universe.

Doctor Who’s most famous and recognisable villain has to be the Daleks, and in 1964 they made their second appearance in “The Dalek Invasion of Earth”, a six-part episode where the First Doctor (played by William Hartnell) and his companions travel to 21^st Century London only to discover that the Daleks have invaded and taken over. John Hole’s Quarry in Stone served as the location for a mine where human prisoners are forced to work; the quarry, which was once bordering Bluewater Quarry on the corner of Watling Street and St James’ Lane, is no longer in use.

Nearly a decade later, and it was the area’s time to shine again, this time in the 1972 serial “The Mutants” starring Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor. The Doctor visits the planet Solos with his companion Jo, where the natives of Solos have started to mutate into hideous strange creatures. Bluewater Quarry in Stone served as the filming location for Solos; by this point in time the quarry had been massively enlarged for cement production, but would close down in the 1980s before being remade into the Bluewater Shopping Centre that stands there today.

With the rise in popularity and quality of computer graphics, there is not quite the same demand for old quarries as there once was. But who knows – the return of Russell T. Davies as showrunner of Doctor Who has been hailed as a chance for the show to go back to its roots, so maybe filming in old quarries will be a part of that return to form, though it’s unlikely to find Doctor Who in the quarries of Stone.

by Alice Smales