Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park is an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes(Buckinghamshire), that became the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War.
During World War II, the estate housed the Government Code and Cypher School(GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The GC&CS team of codebreakers included Alan Turing, Harry Golombek, Gordon Welchman, Hugh Alexander, Bill Tutte and Stuart Milner-Barry.
The mansion was constructed during the years following 1883 for the financier and politician Herbert Leon in the Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque styles, on the site of older buildings of the same name.
This was an afternoon visit on Thursday 22nd of August. Milton Keynes is approximately one hour from home so it short notice I decided I had a couple of hours to spare in the afternoon and headed over to Bletchley Park. On arrival, I was surprised at the size of the establishment, it was a lot larger than I had expected for some reason.
I was visiting out of historical interest, as its role in the Second World War, the role of Alan Turing, and the breaking of the enigma code, were all familiar to me.I took a camera to record by visit, I wasn’t expecting or looking to create any award-winning images but I thought they would be some interesting subjects to record.
Because of the size of the site I probably only saw half of the buildings and huts that were opened to the public. So a return visit is on the cards. The old manor house is where I started and I had a good look round that and then proceeded to the older and restored, which very much as they were in the war. These can be seen in the photographs below. The more modern buildings housed a number of exhibitions, galleries and exhibits which I chose not to visit this time round.
I was surprised at the number of people walking around, a large number of European and American tourists were present. Clearly the role of Bletchley Park is understood outside of the UK. There are also quite a lot of families with children, as to be expected during a summer holidays. so my plan would be for Return visit in school term time when there is less people around and there is more time to read and study all of the display boards explaining the exhibits.
