Coal Hill School

Coal Hill School is a fictional school in the television series Doctor Who. It is a comprehensive school in Coal Hill Road, located in the Shoreditch area of London. The school arms consist of a shield with the Cross of St George between two dragons segreant, with the motto "Domine dirige nos", which translates as "Lord, guide us".

The Coal Hill School is the setting of much of the very first episode of the series, "An Unearthly Child", first broadcast in November 1963. The episode takes place in the same year. In the episode, two teachers at the school, science teacher Ian Chesterton and history teacher Barbara Wright, discover that one of their students, Susan Foreman, is an alien time traveller who has been attending the school as her grandfather, the Doctor (the central character of the series), makes repairs on their time machine, the TARDIS.

The school appeared in the series again almost twenty-five years later in the October 1988 story Remembrance of the Daleks. In this serial, a nostalgia-laden tribute to the show that kicked off its 25th anniversary season, the Seventh Doctor returns to 1963 to complete some business left unfinished by his hurried departure on the previous occasion. The school is a featured location, as a group of Daleks set up a base there while attempting to locate a powerful Time Lord artifact, the Hand of Omega, the Doctor had previously hidden in the area. The school sign names the incumbent Headmaster as H Parson.

Coal Hill School is also set to make another appearance in the 50th anniversary special. The school sign names the Headmaster W Coburn, making reference to Anthony Coburn, who wrote An Unearthly Child.

Sam Jones, a companion from the Eighth Doctor Adventures spin-off novels, also attended Coal Hill School. In the 2010 episode The Vampires of Venice, the Eleventh Doctor briefly produces a library card from Shoreditch Library with the photo ID of his original incarnation.

External links

• Coal Hill School on TARDIS Data Core, an external wiki