One Canada Square

One Canada Square was a skyscraper located in Canary Wharf, London. (PROSE: Millennial Rites) It was also known as Canary Wharf Tower (PROSE: Millennial Rites, Head Games, The Time Travellers) or just Canary Wharf for short. (TV: Army of Ghosts) To the Torchwood Institute, is was known as Torchwood Tower, and circa 2005, it served as their headquarters. In order to gain access, one had to say "Mr Sands" to a receptionist. (AUDIO: New Girl) It was also home to at least one company, Walters and Hunt. (AUDIO: The Law Machines) The tower was 50-storeys, standing at a height of 244 metres. (PROSE: The Time Travellers' Almanac)

Internal relations
The tower was home to Torchwood One, (TV: Army of Ghosts) as well as Walters and Hunt. There was a spa on the third floor. (AUDIO: The Law Machines)

History
The tower was constructed between 1987 and 1991. (PROSE: The Time Travellers' Almanac, AUDIO: Locker 15) to reach the height of the radar black spot later determined by the Institute to constitute an anomaly in space and time, in reality a breach into the Void. The Torchwood Institute set out to investigate and, if possible, exploit the phenomenon. The true nature of the tower and the existence of Torchwood itself remained unknown to the public. Torchwood One later based itself out of the tower. (TV: Army of Ghosts)

Ashley Chapel, the designer of the micromonolithic circuit, operated his company, ACL, out of the tower in late 1999. Due to Chapel's use of the Millennium Codex, the tower briefly entered or transformed into the Great Kingdom where One Canada Square turned into the Tower of Abraxas. (PROSE: Millennial Rites) A newspaper later recovered by Ace reported the tower's change in shape. (PROSE: Head Games)

In the early morning of 1 January 2005, the newly regenerated Eleventh Doctor flew west above the Torchwood Tower's pinnacle whilst clinging by his fingers from his TARDIS' door sill, before climbing back aboard and being thrown nearly nine years back in time. (TV: The Eleventh Hour)

Yvonne Hartman had Geoff play the piano in reception. (AUDIO: New Girl)

The Tenth Doctor visited the Tower in 2007 with Rose Tyler and was promptly arrested as an enemy of the empire pursuant to the Torchwood Institute's royal charter.

Other sections of the Tower acted as testing grounds for technology derived from alien artefacts. Torchwood was involved in experimental "ghost shifts" which opened up the Void and allowed the Cybermen of another world to enter this universe. A golden levitating sphere, actually a Void Ship, appeared at the radar black spot. (TV: Army of Ghosts) The Void Ship contained the Cult of Skaro, a quartet of Daleks who had escaped into the Void to survive the Last Great Time War, who clashed with the Cybermen in the conflict known as the Battle of Canary Wharf. The Doctor discovered a way to force anything touched by the Void to return there. This included millions of Cybermen from the other world as well as every Dalek that had come through the Void. This, as well as the battle itself, caused great damage to the building. (TV: Doomsday) Ianto Jones and his girlfriend, Lisa Hallett, both of whom worked for Torchwood One, escaped from the building before its destruction. Lisa, at this stage, had already been partially cyber-converted. (TV: Cyberwoman)

Other realities
In an alternative 2006 in which London was in ruins, the British Army based itself out of Canary Wharf Tower. (PROSE: The Time Travellers)

In an alternate timeline in which John Hart took control of the British Empire and the Torchwood Institute, Yvonne Hartman called to inform him of the discovery of the Sphere at Torchwood One. Despite the reservations of Rajesh Singh, the King ordered that the Sphere be opened, resulting in Torchwood One and the home counties being massacred. (AUDIO: The Death of Captain Jack)

Behind the scenes
Helicopter footage of Canary Wharf in Army of Ghosts, during the reveal of the location of the Tower, was taken from the British TV show The Apprentice.

Torre Torchwood