Torchwood Tower Torchwood Tower was a skyscraper located in Canary Wharf , London . To members of the general public , the building itself was known as " One Canada Square " ( PROSE : " Millennial Rites " ) , " Canary Wharf Tower " ( PROSE : " Millennial Rites " , " Head Games " , " The Time Travellers " ) or just Canary Wharf for short . ( TV : " Army of Ghosts " ) Circa 2007 , it served as the headquarters of the Torchwood Institute . History . The tower was built to reach the height of the radar black spot later determined by the Institute to constitute an anomaly in space and time , in reality a breach into the Void . The Torchwood Institute set out to investigate and , if possible , exploit the phenomenon . The true nature of the tower and the existence of Torchwood itself remained unknown to the public . Torchwood One later based itself out of the tower . ( TV : " Army of Ghosts " ) Ashley Chapel , the designer of the micromonolithic circuit , operated his company , ACL , out of the tower in late 1999 . Due to Chapel ' s use of the Millennium Codex , the tower briefly entered or transformed into the Great Kingdom where One Canada Square turned into the Tower of Abraxas . ( PROSE : " Millennial Rites " ) A newspaper later recovered by Ace reported the tower ' s change in shape . ( PROSE : " Head Games " ) In the early morning of 1 January 2005 , the newly regenerated Eleventh Doctor , flew west above the Torchwood Tower ' s pinnacle whilst clinging by his fingers from his TARDIS ' door sill , before climbing back aboard and being thrown nearly nine years back in time . ( TV : " The Eleventh Hour " ) The Tenth Doctor visited the Tower in 2007 with Rose Tyler and was promptly arrested as an enemy of the empire pursuant to the Torchwood Institute ' s royal charter . Other sections of the Tower acted as testing grounds for technology derived from alien artefacts . Torchwood was involved in experimental " ghost shifts " which opened up the Void and allowed the Cybermen of another world to enter this universe . A golden levitating sphere , actually a Void Ship , appeared at the spot . ( TV : " Army of Ghosts " ) The Void Ship contained the Cult of Skaro , a group of Dalek s who had escaped into the Void to survive the Last Great Time War , who clashed with the Cybermen in the conflict known as the Battle of Canary Wharf . The Doctor discovered a way to force anything touched by the Void to return there . This included millions of Cybermen from the other world as well as every Dalek that had come through the Void . This , as well as the battle itself , caused great damage to the building . ( TV : " Doomsday " ) Other information . Ianto Jones and his girlfriend , Lisa Hallett , both of whom worked for Torchwood One , escaped from the building before its destruction . Lisa , at this stage , had already been partially cyber - converted . ( TV : " Cyberwoman " ) Alternate timelines . In an alternative 2006 in which London lies in ruins , the British Army based itself out of Canary Wharf Tower . ( PROSE : " The Time Travellers " ) Behind the scenes . Helicopter footage of Canary Wharf in " Army of Ghosts " , during the reveal of the location of the Tower , was taken from the British TV show " The Apprentice " .