Victoria Place, Newport

It's been a really busy weekend workwise and I was out of the house not long after 9am this morning. No chance of a Sunday morning lay-in!

After finishing a mid day call, not far away from The Royal Gwent,  Hospital, I headed to Victoria Place, Newport. It consists of two rows of terraced town houses from the Edwardian period  (1901-10) that were once derelict, and occupied by squaters.

In 1974, Newport MP Paul Flynn persuaded the Welsh Office to make them listed buildings (Grade 2 listed on 1st February 1974) with the view that the council buy them and turn them into student accommodation. The council did not have the funds and so a private developer renovated them and they are now privately owned houses/apartments.

They're lovely looking properties and are well known in the city. It has been used as the background for period films such as Carries War and the House of Eliot.

It has also been used in episode of Dr Who. Victoria Place featured  representing a London of the future rather than the past.The traumatic and powerful conclusion to The Waters Of Mars, the 2009 Autumn Special, was played out on the cold night of Friday 27 February by a cast including David Tennant as the Doctor and Lindsay Duncan as Adelaide Brooke, the commander of Bowie Base One on Mars.

Having rescued Adelaide, Yuri and Mia - not forgetting the robot Gadget - and returned them to London 2059, the Doctor learnt that he had overstepped the boundary of his own powers to change the laws of time with tragic consequences. With the ominous appearance of Ood Sigma, the night shoot concluded around 3.25pm in the morning, with David Tennant later commenting, "It was a lot to shoot in one night."

It all happens in Newport!!