Bletchley Park museum

Bletchley Park

The mansion in 2017
Established	1938 (as a code-breaking centre); 1993 (as a museum)
Location	Bletchley, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, England, United Kingdom
Coordinates	51.998°N 0.741°W / 51.998; -0.741
Director	Iain Standen
Public transit access	Bletchley railway station
Website	bletchleypark.org.uk

This article is about the modern museums and visitor centre. For the wartime intelligence operations at the Bletchley Park estate, see Bletchley Park.

The Bletchley Park Museum occupies an English country house and estate in Bletchley, Milton Keynes (Buckinghamshire), and celebrates Bletchley Park the principal centre of Allied code-breaking during the Second World War.

Bletchley Park housed the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), which regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly the German Enigma Lorenz cipher. The team of codebreakers included the computer pioneer Alan Turing and the "Ultra" intelligence produced at Bletchley was believed to have shortened the war by two to four years. The team at Bletchley Park, which included a lot of women, developed Colossus, the world's first programmable digital electronic computer. Codebreaking operations at Bletchley Park came to an end in 1946 and all information about the wartime operations was classified until the mid-1970s.

More recently, Bletchley Park has been open to the public, featuring interpretive exhibits and huts that have been rebuilt to appear as they did during their wartime operations. It receives hundreds of thousands of visitors annually. The separate National Museum of Computing, which includes a working replica Bombe machine and a rebuilt Colossus computer, is housed in Block H on the site.

Postwar neglect

After the war, the codebreakers left Bletchley Park and until the 1970s there was a general secrecy about the activities in the park.

Bletchley Park Trust was set up in 1991 by a group of people who recognised the site's importance, as it was at risk of being sold off for housing. and in February 1992, the Milton Keynes Borough Council declared most of the Park a conservation area.

New Museum

The site opened to visitors in 1993, and was formally inaugurated by the Duke of Kent as Chief Patron in July 1994 and Tony Sale became the first director of the Bletchley Park Museums in 1994.

In 1999 the land owners, the Property Advisors to the Civil Estate and BT Group, granted a lease to the Trust giving it control over most of the site.

Heritage attraction

The stableyard cottages, where Alan Turing worked

June 2014 saw the completion of an £8 million restoration project by museum design specialist, Event Communications, which was marked by a visit from Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge. The Duchess' paternal grandmother, Valerie Middleton, and Valerie's twin sister, Mary (née Glassborow), both worked at Bletchley Park during the war. The twin sisters worked as Foreign Office Civilians in Hut 6, where they managed the interception of enemy and neutral diplomatic signals for decryption. Valerie married Catherine's grandfather, Captain Peter Middleton. A memorial at Bletchley Park commemorates Mary and Valerie Middleton's work as code-breakers.

Exhibitions

Rear of the rebuilt Bombe, now located at the National Museum of Computing, a separate museum on the Bletchley Park site in Block H

• Block C Visitor Centre
  • Secrets Revealed introduction
  • The Road to Bletchley Park. Codebreaking in World War One.
  • Intel Security Cybersecurity exhibition. Online security and privacy in the 21st century.
• Block B
  • Lorenz Cipher
  • Alan Turing
  • Enigma machines
  • Japanese codes
  • Home Front exhibition. How people lived in WW2
• The Mansion
  • Office of Alistair Denniston
  • Library. Dressed as a World War II naval intelligence office
  • The Imitation Game exhibition
  • Gordon Welchman: Architect of Ultra Intelligence exhibition
• Huts 3 and 6. Codebreaking offices as they would have looked during World War II.
• Hut 8.
  • Interactive exhibitions explaining codebreaking
  • Alan Turing's office
  • Pigeon exhibition. The use of pigeons in World War II.
• Hut 11. Life as a WRNS Bombe operator
• Hut 12. Bletchley Park: Rescued and Restored. Items found during the restoration work.
• Wartime garages
• Hut 19. 2366 Bletchley Park Air Training Corp Squadron

Learning Department

The Story of Enigma workshop with Middlesex University students

The Bletchley Park Learning Department offers educational group visits with active learning activities for schools and universities. Visits can be booked in advance during term time, where students can engage with the history of Bletchley Park and understand its wider relevance for computer history and national security. Their workshops cover introductions to codebreaking, cyber security and the story of Enigma and Lorenz.

Funding

In October 2005, American billionaire Sidney Frank donated £500,000 to Bletchley Park Trust to fund a new Science Centre dedicated to Alan Turing. Simon Greenish joined as Director in 2006 to lead the fund-raising effort in a post he held until 2012 when Iain Standen took over the leadership role. In July 2008, a letter to The Times from more than a hundred academics condemned the neglect of the site. In September 2008, PGP, IBM and other technology firms announced a fund-raising campaign to repair the facility. On 6 November 2008 it was announced that English Heritage would donate £300,000 to help maintain the buildings at Bletchley Park, and that they were in discussions regarding the donation of a further £600,000.

In October 2011, the Bletchley Park Trust received a £4.6 million Heritage Lottery Fund grant to be used "to complete the restoration of the site, and to tell its story to the highest modern standards" on the condition that £1.7 million of match funding is raised by the Bletchley Park Trust. Just weeks later, Google contributed £550,000 and by June 2012 the trust had successfully raised £2.4 million to unlock the grants to restore Huts 3 and 6, as well as develop its exhibition centre in Block C.

Additional income is raised by renting Block H to the National Museum of Computing, and some office space in various parts of the park to private firms.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic the Trust expected to lose more than £2 million in 2020 and be required to cut a third of its workforce. Former MP John Leech asked Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook and Microsoft to donate £400,000 each to secure the future of the Trust. Leech had led the successful campaign to pardon Alan Turing and implement Turing's Law.

Other organisations sharing the campus

The National Museum of Computing

Main article: The National Museum of Computing

Tony Sale supervising the breaking of an enciphered message with the completed Colossus computer rebuild in 2006 at The National Museum of Computing

The National Museum of Computing is housed in Block H, which is rented from the Bletchley Park Trust. Its Colossus and Tunny galleries tell an important part of allied breaking of German codes during World War II. There is a working reconstruction of a Bombe and a rebuilt Colossus computer which was used on the high-level Lorenz cipher, codenamed Tunny by the British.

The museum, which opened in 2007, is an independent voluntary organisation that is governed by its own board of trustees. Its aim is "To collect and restore computer systems particularly those developed in Britain and to enable people to explore that collection for inspiration, learning and enjoyment." Through its many exhibits, the museum displays the story of computing through the mainframes of the 1960s and 1970s, and the rise of personal computing in the 1980s. It has a policy of having as many of the exhibits as possible in full working order.

Science and Innovation Centre

This consisted of serviced office accommodation housed in Bletchley Park's Blocks A and E, and the upper floors of the Mansion. Its aim was to foster the growth and development of dynamic knowledge-based start-ups and other businesses. It closed in 2021 and blocks A and E were taken into use as part of the museum.

Proposed National College of Cyber Security

In April 2020 Bletchley Park Capital Partners, a private company run by Tim Reynolds, Deputy Chairman of the National Museum of Computing, announced plans to sell off the freehold to part of the site containing former Block G for commercial development. Offers of between £4 million and £6 million were reportedly being sought for the 3 acre plot, for which planning permission for employment purposes was granted in 2005. Previously, the construction of a National College of Cyber Security for students aged from 16 to 19 years old had been envisaged on the site, to be housed in Block G after renovation with funds supplied by the Bletchley Park Science and Innovation Centre.

RSGB National Radio Centre

The Radio Society of Great Britain's National Radio Centre (including a library, radio station, museum and bookshop) are in a newly constructed building close to the main Bletchley Park entrance.

Location

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Bletchley Park within Milton Keynes
(OpenStreetMap) Zoom in

Bletchley Park is opposite Bletchley railway station. It is close to junctions 13 and 14 of the M1, about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of London.

See also

• National Cryptologic Museum – Museum in Maryland, U.S.

Bibliography

Sources

• Aldrich, Richard J. (2010), GCHQ: The Uncensored Story of Britain's Most Secret Intelligence Agency, HarperCollins, ISBN 978-0-00-727847-3
• Bennett, Ralph (1999) [1994], Behind the Battle: Intelligence in the war with Germany, 1939–1945 (New and Enlarged ed.), London: Random House, ISBN 978-0-7126-6521-6
• Briggs, Asa (2011), Secret Days: Code-breaking in Bletchley Park, Barnsley, England: Frontline Books, ISBN 978-1-84832-615-6
• Budiansky, Stephen (2000), Battle of wits: The Complete Story of Codebreaking in World War II, Free Press, ISBN 978-0-684-85932-3
• Calvocoressi, Peter (2001) [1980], Top Secret Ultra, Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire: M & M Baldwin, ISBN 0-947712-41-0
• Copeland, B. Jack, ed. (2006), Colossus: The Secrets of Bletchley Park's Codebreaking Computers, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-284055-4
• Enever, Ted (1999), Britain's Best Kept Secret: Ultra's Base at Bletchley Park (3rd ed.), Sutton, ISBN 978-0-7509-2355-2
• Erskine, Ralph (2011), Breaking German Naval Enigma on Both Sides of the Atlantic in Erskine & Smith 2011, pp. 165–83
• Erskine, Ralph; Smith, Michael, eds. (2011), The Bletchley Park Codebreakers, Biteback Publishing Ltd, ISBN 978-1-84954-078-0 Updated and extended version of Action This Day: From Breaking of the Enigma Code to the Birth of the Modern Computer Bantam Press 2001
• Grey, Christopher (2012), Decoding Organization: Bletchley Park, Codebreaking and Organization Studies, Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, ISBN 978-1107005457
• Hill, Marion (2004), Bletchley Park People, Stroud, Gloucestershire: The History Press, ISBN 978-0-7509-3362-9
• Hinsley, Harry (1996) [1993], The Influence of ULTRA in the Second World War, retrieved 13 February 2015 Transcript of a lecture given on Tuesday 19 October 1993 at Cambridge University
• Hinsley, F. H.; Stripp, Alan, eds. (1993) [1992], Codebreakers: The inside story of Bletchley Park, Oxford: Oxford University Press, ISBN 978-0-19-280132-6
• Kenyon, David (10 May 2019), Bletchley Park and D-Day: The Untold Story of How the Battle for Normandy Was Won, Yale University Press, ISBN 978-0-300-24357-4
• Lewin, Ronald (2001) [1978], Ultra Goes to War: The Secret Story, Classic Military History (Classic Penguin ed.), London, England: Hutchinson & Co, ISBN 978-1-56649-231-7
• McKay, Sinclair (2010), The Secret Life of Bletchley Park: the WWII Codebreaking Centre and the Men and Women Who Worked There, Aurum, ISBN 978-1-84513-539-3
• Millward, William (1993), Life in and out of Hut 3 in Hinsley & Stripp 1993, pp. 17–29
• Milner-Barry, Stuart (1993), Navy Hut 6: Early days in Hinsley & Stripp 1993, pp. 89–99
• Morrison, Kathryn, 'A Maudlin and Monstrous Pile': The Mansion at Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, English Heritage
• Pidgeon, Geoffrey (2003), The Secret Wireless War: The story of MI6 communications 1939–1945, Universal Publishing Solutions Online Ltd, ISBN 978-1-84375-252-3
• Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh (2017) [2000], Enigma: The Battle for the Code, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 978-1-4746-0832-9
• Sebag-Montefiore, Hugh (2000), Enigma: The Battle for the Code (Cassell Military Paperbacks ed.), London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, ISBN 978-0-297-84251-4
• Scott, Norman (April 1997), "Solving Japanese naval ciphers 1943–1945", Cryptologia, 21 (2): 149–57, doi:10.1080/0161-119791885878
• Smith, Christopher (2015), The Hidden History of Bletchley Park: A Social and Organisational History, Palgrave Macmillan, ISBN 978-1137484932
• Smith, Michael (1999) [1998], Station X: The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park, Channel 4 Books, p. 20, ISBN 978-0-7522-2189-2
• Smith, Michael (2000), The Emperor's Codes: Bletchley Park and the breaking of Japan's secret ciphers, Bantam Press, ISBN 0593-046412
• Smith, Michael (2001) [1999], "An Undervalued Effort: how the British broke Japan's Codes", in Smith, Michael; Erskine, Ralph (eds.), Action this Day, London: Bantam, ISBN 978-0-593-04910-5
• Smith, Michael (2006), How it began: Bletchley Park Goes to War in Copeland 2006, pp. 18–35
• Smith, Michael; Butters, Lindsey (2007) [2001], The Secrets of Bletchley Park: Official Souvenir Guide, Bletchley Park Trust
• Taylor, Telford (1993), Anglo-American signals intelligence co-operation in Hinsley & Stripp 1993, pp. 71–3
• Thirsk, James (2008), Bletchley Park: An Inmate's Story, Galago, ISBN 978-094699588-2
• Twinn, Peter (1993), The Abwehr Enigma in Hinsley & Stripp 1993, pp. 123–31
• Watson, Bob (1993), Appendix: How the Bletchley Park buildings took shape in Hinsley & Stripp 1993, pp. 306–10
• Welchman, Gordon (1997) [1982], The Hut Six story: Breaking the Enigma codes, Cleobury Mortimer, England: M&M Baldwin, ISBN 9780947712341 New edition with addendum by Welchman correcting his misapprehensions in the 1982 edition.

Further reading

• Comer, Tony (2021), Commentary: Poland's Decisive Role in Cracking Enigma and Transforming the UK's SIGINT Operations, Royal United Services Institute, archived from the original on 8 February 2021, retrieved 30 January 2021
• Gannon, Paul (2006), Colossus: Bletchley Park's Greatest Secret, Atlantic Books, ISBN 978-1-84354-331-2
• Gannon, Paul (2011), Inside Room 40: The Codebreakers of World War II, Ian Allan Publishing, ISBN 978-0-7110-3408-2
• Hastings, Max (2015). The Secret War: Spies, Codes and Guerrillas 1939 -1945. London: William Collins. ISBN 978-0-00-750374-2.
• Hilton, Peter (1988), Reminiscences of Bletchley Park, 1942–1945 (PDF), pp. 291–301, archived from the original (PDF) on 15 May 2006, retrieved 13 September 2009 (CAPTCHA) (10-page preview from A Century of mathematics in America, Volume 1 By Peter L. Duren, Richard Askey, Uta C. Merzbach, see A Century of Mathematics in America: Part 1; ISBN 978-0-8218-0124-6).
• Large, Christine (2003), Hijacking Enigma: The Insider's Tale, John Wiley, ISBN 978-0-470-86346-6
• Luke, Doreen (2005) [2003], My Road to Bletchley Park (3rd ed.), Cleobury Mortimer, Shropshire: M & M Baldwin, ISBN 978-0-947712-44-0
• McKay, Sinclair (2012), The Secret Listeners: How the Y Service Intercepted German Codes for Bletchley Park, London: Aurum, ISBN 978-1-845137-63-2
• Mahon, A. P. (1945), The History of Hut Eight 1939 – 1945, UK National Archives Reference HW 25/2, retrieved 10 December 2009
• Manning, Mick; Granström, Brita (2010), Taff in the WAAF, Frances Lincoln Children's Books, ISBN 978-1-84780-093-0
• O'Keefe, David (2013), One Day in August - The Untold Story Behind Canada's Tragedy at Dieppe, Alfred A. Knopf Canada, ISBN 978-0-345-80769-4
• Pearson, Joss, ed. (2011), Neil Webster's Cribs for Victory: The Untold Story of Bletchley Park's Secret Room, Polperro Heritage Press, ISBN 978-0-9559541-8-4
• Price, David A. (2021). Geniuses at War; Bletchley Park, Colossus, and the Dawn of the Digital Age. New York: Knopf. ISBN 978-0-525-52154-9.
• Russell-Jones, Mair (2014), My Secret Life in Hut Six: One Woman's Experiences at Bletchley Park, Lion Hudson, ISBN 978-0-745-95664-0
• Smith, Christopher (2014), "Operating secret machines: military women and the intelligence production line, 1939–1945", Women's History Magazine, 76: 30–36, ISSN 1476-6760
• Smith, Christopher (2014), "How I learned to stop worrying and love the Bombe: Machine Research and Development and Bletchley Park", History of Science, 52 (2): 200–222, doi:10.1177/0073275314529861, S2CID 145181963
• Turing, Dermot (2018). X, Y & Z: The Real Story of How Enigma Was Broken. Gloucestershire, UK: The History Press. ISBN 978-0-7509-8782-0.
• Watkins, Gwen (2006), Cracking the Luftwaffe Codes, Greenhill Books, ISBN 978-1-85367-687-1

External links

• Bletchley Park Trust Archived 9 December 2009 at the Wayback Machine
• Roll of Honour: List of the men and women who worked at Bletchley Park and the Out Stations during WW2, archived from the original on 18 May 2011, retrieved 9 July 2011
• Bletchley Park—Virtual Tour by Tony Sale
• The National Museum of Computing (based at Bletchley Park)
• The RSGB National Radio Centre (based at Bletchley Park)
• "New hope of saving Bletchley Park for nation". Archived from the original on 6 February 2006. Retrieved 10 April 2019. (The Daily Telegraph 3 March 1997)
• Boffoonery! Comedy Benefit For Bletchley Park Archived 17 December 2014 at the Wayback Machine Comedians and computing professionals stage comedy show in aid of Bletchley Park
• Bletchley Park: It's No Secret, Just an Enigma, The Telegraph, 29 August 2009
• Bletchley Park is official charity of Shed Week 2010—in recognition of the work done in the Huts
• Saving Bletchley Park blog by Sue Black
• 19-minute Video interview on YouTube with Sue Black by Robert Llewellyn about Bletchley Park
• Douglas, Ian (25 December 2012), "Bletchley's forgotten heroes", The Daily Telegraph, archived from the original on 26 December 2012
• The Bletchley Park Podcast on Audioboom
• Bletchley Park Paperwork at The ICL Computer Museum

Maps

• Map of Bletchley Park site, as used during World War II
• Map of Bletchley Park site, as used 1939-1945
• Bletchley Park - Interactive Map
• Map of Bletchley Park site, as used in 2024
• View of Bletchley Park site, in 2024