River Thames The River Thames , also known as the Thames , was a river that ran through the heart of London . It was the site ( or close to the site ) of many alien incursions . The River Fleet ran into the Thames . ( TV : " The Talons of Weng - Chiang " ) Sonning Palace was situated on the bank of the Thames . ( AUDIO : " The Doctor ' s Tale " ) History . 15th century . In January 1400 , pursued by Ian Chesterton , Sir Robert de Wensley slipped on ice on the bank of the Thames and fell into the water , where the current carried him away . ( AUDIO : " The Doctor ' s Tale " ) 18th century . In the summer of 1762 , Steven Taylor worked as a boatman on the Thames . ( AUDIO : " The Founding Fathers " ) 19th century . In February 1814 , the river froze over after a Phoenix egg was brought to London by a trader ( AUDIO : " Frostfire " ) and the Hyban Masoon landed in the area . The Tenth Doctor took Mai Kondo ice skating at this time . ( PROSE : " The Frozen " ) The First Doctor had already visited the 1814 frost fair with his companions Steven and Vicki Pallister . ( AUDIO : " Frostfire " ) The Doctor later went to the frost fair in the company of River Song . ( TV : " A Good Man Goes to War " ) This became known as the " last of the great frost fairs . " ( AUDIO : " Frostfire " ) A serpent - like creature was chained under the Thames at some point prior . Lord Sutcliffe tried to lure people onto the ice for the frost fair in order to feed the monster to use the produced faeces as a fuel more efficient and hotter than coal . However the Twelfth Doctor and Bill Potts discovered his plan and the Doctor freed the creature using the explosives Sutcliffe had intended to use to break the ice . Sutcliffe was on the ice when the serpent cracked it and fell through . ( TV : " Thin Ice " ) In 1833 , the Fifth Doctor programmed the TARDIS and it materialise d in the Thames . ( AUDIO : " The Haunting of Thomas Brewster " ) In 1851 , Thomas Brewster ' s mother committed suicide by throwing herself into the Thames . ( AUDIO : " The Haunting of Thomas Brewster " ) In 1865 , the TARDIS was recovered from the Thames and kept in the Creek ' s shop until the Fifth Doctor and Nyssa recovered it again in November 1867 . ( AUDIO : " The Haunting of Thomas Brewster " ) Sometime after 1888 , Strax attended the annual New Year ' s Eve swim at the Thames . Jenny Flint , among many people , found the sight of Strax in a bathing suit hilarious . ( PROSE : " The Importance of Being Strax " ) In the 1890s , the Sixth Doctor sank his TARDIS to the bottom of the mud in the Thames . He later retrieved it using a Stattenheim remote control . ( AUDIO : " The Hourglass Killers " ) In 1894 , a group of Zygon s had a spacecraft under the Thames . ( PROSE : " The Body Snatchers " ) Later in 1894 , the Paternoster Gang helped a group of Gremlin s settle into the bottom of the Thames in the Greenwich area . ( PROSE : " The Curious Case of the Miniature Menaces " ) In 1897 , the Paternoster Gang defeated a pair of Esturian s who had parked their spaceship at the bottom of the Thames . ( PROSE : " The Terror of the Thames " ) 20th century . In 1909 , a fragment of the Doctor ' s TARDIS containing Bernice Summerfield crashed along the banks of the Thames . During the time that Benny spent stranded in this era , she would often return to the Thames to check that the TARDIS was still there . ( PROSE : " Birthright " ) In 1911 , Iris Wildthyme , Archibald Angelchrist , and Panda fought a school of Piscotorian s on the Thames embankment . ( PROSE : " Iris at the V & A " ) On 20 April 1958 , the MTB " Heroic " sank in the Thames due to a storm . Its crewmember Johnny Skipton was rescued from drowning by the 39th century time travel ler Elliot Payne and brought to the 1890s . ( AUDIO : " Dead Men ' s Tales " , " Chronoclasm " ) During the World Energy Conference in the 1970s , the Skarasen swam up the Thames following a Zygon tracking device . ( TV : " Terror of the Zygons " ) On 28 February 1981 , the Fourth Doctor attempted to flush out of the TARDIS by landing in the Thames and opening the doors . However , he landed on a boat instead . ( TV : " Logopolis " ) A Dalek time corridor led to a warehouse not far from the Thames in 1984 . ( TV : " Resurrection of the Daleks " ) The Dusk Casino was located on the banks of the Thames . In 1999 , the Sixth Doctor and Evelyn Smythe encountered the Forge ' s victims there . ( AUDIO : " Project : Twilight " ) 21st century . In 2006 , as part of a hoax to gain control of Earth ' s nuclear weapon s , ( TV : " World War Three " ) members of the Slitheen family flew a spaceship through Big Ben and landed it in the Thames . ( TV : " Aliens of London " ) The Waterhive lived in the Thames , having arrived there when the wreckage of a cruiser containing them was towed up the river . ( PROSE : " The Feast of the Drowned " ) On 24 December 2007 , the Thames was drained by the Tenth Doctor in order to stop the Racnoss . The Thames Flood Barrier had been built by the Torchwood Institute as a cover for a project to synthesise huon particle s from water . ( TV : " The Runaway Bride " ) During the Dalek invasion of Earth in 2009 , the Dalek s destroyed the " Valiant " while it was over the Thames . ( TV : " The Stolen Earth " ) In 2010 an old Nadloon circus comedy cruiser crashed in the Thames . Sarah Jane Smith and her friends had recovered the cruiser from the Thames . ( COMIC : " Defending Bannerman Road " ) In 2015 , Iris Wildthyme dealt with a Gomagog wormhole beneath London Bridge . ( AUDIO : " Kronos Vad ' s History of Earth Vol . 36 , 379 " ) In 2030 , the river was artificially frozen over for the " Dancing On Ice " special . ( PROSE : " The Frozen " ) In 2050 , the Thames was polluted by chenium when Drake tried to replicate Mede technology . After the Medes were released , they cleaned up the pollution before departing . ( TV : " Alien Avatar " ) 22nd century . In 2167 , the TARDIS materialised on the bank of the Thames . Soon afterward , the First Doctor and Ian Chesterton were taken prisoner by a Dalek which rose from the Thames itself . Later , Susan Foreman left her TARDIS key on the riverbank after the Doctor dematerialised the TARDIS and left her behind to her new life . ( TV : " The Dalek Invasion of Earth " ) Parallel world . In a parallel world , the Tenth Doctor died under the Thames by drowning in the resulting flood which defeated the Racnoss . His body and the TARDIS was retrieved by UNIT soldiers . ( TV : " Turn Left " )