Wales Wales was a British nation whose capital and largest city , Cardiff , sat on a time rift , ( TV : " The Unquiet Dead " , et al ) and was the home of Torchwood Three ( TV : " Everything Changes " , et al ) Rex Matheson called the country " the British equivalent of New Jersey " . ( TV : " The New World " ) Wrexham was a town in North Wales . ( AUDIO : " Forgotten Lives " ) Torchwood Three ' s Gwen Cooper ( whose family came from Swansea ) and Ianto Jones were both of Welsh nationality , as was Gwen ' s husband , Rhys Williams . Wales was also the location of Aberystwyth University . ( TV : " Random Shoes " ) History . 14th century . In 1400 , Geoffrey Chaucer went into hiding in Wales under an assumed name . ( AUDIO : " The Doctor ' s Tale " ) 19th century . Torchwood Three was founded in 1885 . ( PROSE : " Slow Decay " ) 20th century . Throughout the century ( if not before ) , the inhabitants of Brynblaidd in the Brecon Beacons mountain range secretly indulged in murder and cannibalism . ( TV : " Countrycide " ) In 1959 , a Navarino group , together with the Seventh Doctor and Melanie Bush crashed at Shangri - La holiday camp in Wales . The Bannermen attacked the camp but were defeated by the Chimeron princess . ( TV : " Delta and the Bannermen " ) In the 1970s , the Third Doctor worked on his TARDIS in a barn on a Welsh mountainside . ( COMIC : " Gemini Plan " ) A few years later , the Third Doctor and Jo Grant , both of whom worked for UNIT at the time , visited the small Welsh mining town of Llanfairfach as well as Wholeweal , a small countercultural commune nearby . ( TV : " The Green Death " ) In 1992 , the Seventh Doctor and Ace found a portal from a stone circle near Llanfer Ceiriog linking it to an alien world called Tír na n - Óg . ( PROSE : " " ) 21st century . Torchwood Three ' s hub was destroyed in September 2009 . ( TV : " " ) By the time of the Miracle Day phenomenon , Welsh people greatly disliked being mistaken for or called English ; when a CIA agent insulted Gwen Cooper in this way , Gwen furiously told her that she was Welsh and punched her in the face . ( TV : " Rendition " ) In 2010 , a fake funeral for the Doctor was held at UNIT Base 5 inside Mount Snowdon . It was actually a ruse by Tia Karim and the Claw Shansheeth of the 15th Funeral Fleet to steal the Doctor ' s TARDIS . ( TV : " Death of the Doctor " ) In 2020 , a tribe of Silurian s was awakened from a drilling operation in Cwmtaff , sealing its residents behind a force field . ( TV : " The Hungry Earth " / " Cold Blood " ) Other information . Wales was well known for being made up of numerous valley s . In 2005 , Ianto Jones had earned the nickname " Valley Boy " simply for being Welsh . ( AUDIO : " Uprising " ) In 2009 , Ianto Jones posed as the Welsh ambassador to Switzerland ( with Gwen Cooper as his wife ) to gain entrance to the Large Hadron Collider ' s gala opening and investigate alien activity there . ( AUDIO : " Lost Souls " ) When the Miracle Day phenomenon required the presence of Torchwood in several missions in the United States , on several occasions Americans who met Gwen mistakenly believed that she was English , much to her annoyance . ( TV : " Rendition " , " End of the Road " ) Commander Paul Keele , Dr . Eleanor Harcourt and Professor Ivor Fassbinder of Dark Space 8 were once sent back in time to medieval Wales . ( AUDIO : " Bang - Bang - a - Boom ! " )