UNEARTHLY CHATTELS

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Happy birthday Doctor Who! This week I’m taking a look at a few of the items found in the original console room. Most of the information for this post has been cribbed from the forums of tardisbuilders.com and the sharp eyed obsessives who post there.



There are a couple of chairs in the Hartnell console room. One of them is this wavy wooden number. This chair is actually a replica of an ancient chair from Knossos, dating from 1900BC  





AN UNEARTHLY CHILD, 1963

And here is that Knossos chair in the console room in a colourised picture from Clayton Hickman
THE MASQUE OF MANDRAGORA, 1976

The chair makes a reappearance in the secondary console room of season 14.



One of the best known props of the original interior are the
pair of large bronze pillars. The guys over at Tardis Builders describe them as Syrian Candles. I’m not sure I’ve heard that description anywhere else but I assume that’s what they are.




AN UNEARTHLY CHILD, 1963

Here is another colourised picture showing one of them in the console room 

MARCO POLO, 1964

The candles appear outside the TARDIS on a couple of occasions. First in Marco Polo and then in….
THE CRUSADE, 1965
AN ADVENTURE IN SPACE AND TIME, 2013

But probably their most famous appearance is in this 2013 dramatic depiction of Doctor Who’s early years. By staggering good luck the production team where able to source the every same Syrian Candles that had appeared in An Unearthly Child.



Also in the colour picture above is this statue of three eagles standing proud. They are arranged in such a way as to create a plinth for objects to rest on top. 
THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH, 1964

Two of these statues appear in this Vincent Price fronted Sixties horror. 
THE EDGE OF DESTRUCTION, 1964

On top of the eagle plinth in An Unearthly Child is a Chinese Foo Dog. This statue appears in TEOD, moved from the console room to another room in the TARDIS.
MARCO POLO, 1964

And here it appears outside of the TARDIS. 

And there we have it, that’s all for now folks. I hope you enjoy ‘Doctor Who Day’












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