Many films and TV programmes are filmed in Cathays Park; in our everyday lives at Cardiff University we were used to seeing location trucks, catering wagons, lighting rigs, crew, and actors. We had witnessed scenes being set up and we had watched the ‘action!’. We had come to expect the Tardis (from Doctor Who) to be parked around the next corner, or a vampire (from A Discovery of Witches) lurking in the shadows. I had come to imagine what my daemon may actually be, if only I paid it attention (from His Dark Materials), we came to wonder what time and place our building may be ‘passing’ for today (New Orleans? London? Another planet?).

We decided to generate a definitive list of all the programmes filmed in Cathays Park. Compiling information from a variety of sources (Cardiff University’s Film and Conference Unit, the Internet Movie Database, fan sites, and independent audio tours), and working within the constraints of broadcast embargos, we drew up a list of programmes, episodes, and the geographical detail associated with each. In order to visualise these we plotted this data using umap and 360 degree software, And you can explore our alternative atlas of Cathays Park here, and explore themes which emerge from it here.