Report - Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire (December 2016)

[Freddie Valentine]

HISTORY

Bletchley Park was the central site for Britain's codebreakers during World War II. Run by the Government Code and Cypher School, it regularly penetrated the secret communications of the Axis Powers – most importantly the German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers.

The first operational break into Enigma came around the 23 January 1940, when the team working under Dilly Knox, with the mathematicians John Jeffreys, Peter Twinn and Alan Turing, unravelled the German Army administrative key that became known at Bletchley Park as ‘The Green’. Encouraged by this success, the Codebreakers managed to crack the ‘Red’ key used by the Luftwaffe liaison officers co-ordinating air support for army units.

The official historian of World War II British Intelligence has written that the "Ultra" intelligence produced at Bletchley shortened the war by two to four years, and that without it the outcome of the war would have been uncertain.

EXPLORE

Well, we pretty much just strolled into blocks G and D. The place is rapidly being torn down so I believe it's days are numbered. Some interesting artefacts remain but again, I don't imagine they will be there for long. It seems a real shame for this section of Bletchley Park to have been left to rot away. But it made for a good afternoon mooching around nonetheless. Some of the equipment, the big "computer" specifically, looked like a replica, potentially used for the film, 'The Imitation Game'? Or so I'm told...I never watched it...



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[Ferox]

Nice shots mate. Always liked the look of this one

 

[Lord Oort]

You found some great stuff there mate, nice pics as well

So angry, they should be preserving all of Bletchley! We all know now what went on there and how important it was and what incredible work the likes of Flowers, Turing and Welchman did for their country!

Sorry, rant over. Turing and co are some my heroes and it just shits me to tears that they're tearing this historic gem apart

 

[Freddie Valentine]

Thanks dude!

Yeah, it's ridiculous. Developers these days are happy to spend ridiculous quantities of cash building ugly skyscrapers in the city to house financial institutions and the like, but not a penny on preserving our history. That's capitalism for you!

FV

 

[Maniac]

Thanks dude!

Yeah, it's ridiculous. Developers these days are happy to spend ridiculous quantities of cash building ugly skyscrapers in the city to house financial institutions and the like, but not a penny on preserving our history. That's capitalism for you!

FV

Basic business sense, you don't make money out of preserving things and developers are after all a business there to make money so what do you expect them to do?

They've preserved plenty of Bletchley to enable people to see what it did and how it functioned, so I don't think it's upsetting if they do knock down any more of the fairly dilapidated structures, they're pretty featureless really. IMO there is no way G block will ever be used for anything, it's way to far gone and is nothing more than a shell. There's a slim possibility they might be able to use D block, but it would need quite a bit of money throwing at it. There's a LOT of stuff tucked away in the back rooms of that block, it's quite interesting some of the stuff they have stored away.

 

[Freddie Valentine]

Basic business sense, you don't make money out of preserving things and developers are after all a business there to make money so what do you expect them to do?

They've preserved plenty of Bletchley to enable people to see what it did and how it functioned, so I don't think it's upsetting if they do knock down any more of the fairly dilapidated structures, they're pretty featureless really. IMO there is no way G block will ever be used for anything, it's way to far gone and is nothing more than a shell. There's a slim possibility they might be able to use D block, but it would need quite a bit of money throwing at it. There's a LOT of stuff tucked away in the back rooms of that block, it's quite interesting some of the stuff they have stored away.

"Business sense"...ugh...Why is everything always about money? It's thoroughly depressing.

 

[Lord Oort]

Yeah I see your point Mike, people want to make money but at the expense of such an important piece of history that literally changed the world for the better? Personally I think its a disgrace.

Ok I am biased, but I would love to be able to walk around those huts if they were restored with all the interesting kit they still have in them, even if its just any empty room I would still feel the history. Maybe I'm weird lol

 

[Maniac]

"Business sense"...ugh...Why is everything always about money? It's thoroughly depressing.

Only if you choose to make it. I just have an acceptance of it, that's just the way it is and has been since money was invented.

The other thing is you can't preserve everything forever. Old stuff has to make way for the new otherwise you just end up with endless shrines to our past that are perfectly useless in any form except to look at which is a bit of a waste of the most precious commodity we have, land. They've preserved some of Bletchley and I think that's great, but to expect them to preserve all of it is a bit pointless in my opinion.

 

[Maniac]

Yeah I see your point Mike, people want to make money but at the expense of such an important piece of history that literally changed the world for the better? Personally I think its a disgrace.

Ok I am biased, but I would love to be able to walk around those huts if they were restored with all the interesting kit they still have in them, even if its just any empty room I would still feel the history. Maybe I'm weird lol

Most of the kit stored away in those buildings bears no relation to the work done there in WW2, it is mostly much more modern than that and dates from the 70's through to the 90's which is still interesting none the less, but not really the museum pieces that people have in mind when they think of the place.

 

[Lord Oort]

Like I said I'm weird cos I'd find all that stuff fascinating. Been to Bletchley a few times and what they have preserved is brilliant, I just want all of it. /shrugs #wishfulthinking