St Cedd's College

St Cedd's College was a college in Cambridge University, a respected institute of higher education on Earth.

The Time Lord criminal Salyavin, one of the Doctor's boyhood heroes, was a fellow of St. Cedd's College from c. late 17th century, holding the chair of Regius Professor of Chronology under the name Professor Urban Chronotis. (WC: Shada; HOMEVID: Shada) His apartments, Room 314, were really his TARDIS. (HOMEVID: Shada)

The Doctor took an honourary doctoral degree at St Cedd's in 1960 and was known to college porter Wilkin. Accounts differ as to whether it was in his Fourth or Eighth incarnation. (HOMEVID: Shada, WC: Shada, AUDIO: Shada)

Chemistry student Chris Parsons studied at St Cedd's College in the later 1970s. (WC: Shada, AUDIO: Shada)

The Fourth Doctor and Romana, on a visit to St Cedd's College in October 1979, were punting on the canal; (HOMEVID: Shada) whereupon they were abducted by use of the Time Scoop. (TV: The Five Doctors)

Dr. John Winters took a degree at St Cedd's. (GAME: Torchwood Mission Game)

The Eighth Doctor and Romana visited St Cedd's College to visit (once again) Professor Chronotis. (WC: Shada, AUDIO: Shada)

Behind the scenes

 * 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.

"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."
 * St. Cedd's is based somewhat on Adams's own college, St John's.


 * 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.