Bletchley Park is where they cracked all of the Enigma codes during World War II. Unfortunately I can’t tell you anything about it because they make you sign the Official Secrets Act before you go inside, and then wipe all your memories when you come out (seriously). I can’t even remember who I am now.
Ha ha… only joking, it’s a big attraction now so you don’t have to worry – they even let Germans in. Seventy years ago they would have had to slip in under cover of darkness, now they get a guidebook and a map.
If you know anything about Bletchley before you arrive then you will probably walk up to the front door expecting to see that impressive old mansion. But what you actually see are a lot of modern-looking flat buildings – a bit like an industrial business park. The first few rooms are very bland looking, but stick with it because they contain a lot of interesting introductory material.
You can see some old black-and-white photos of how it used to look during the war and some original ticker tapes stamped with “Top Secret” and covered in red pen scrawl. There are even a few letters from Churchill enquiring about the latest intercepts.
There is lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of reading to do (and that is not an exaggeration!), about how the machines were captured, how the codes were cracked, and which military operations directly benefited from the work. It goes into amazing detail about everything – one minute you’re looking at a string of random letters and numbers on a scrap of paper, then they feed it through the machine and turn it into troop movements and tank formations in northern France.
If the movies gave you the impression that we only stole one Enigma machine then prepare for a surprise – they’ve got a whole cabinet full of them. They even do an autopsy on one of them with wiring diagrams, showing how the keyboard worked the wheels – it’s all extremely detailed stuff. They also give you the history of Colossus – the world’s first large-scale computer (an achievement later claimed by the Americans, but actually invented by us in secret).
After that comes a little exhibition about Alan Turing. If you explore all of the huts outside then you will eventually come across his original office with his messy desk overflowing with paperwork and pens. Many of the other huts have been redecorated to look exactly how they were during the war, complete with 1940s fag packets and hats and coats hanging on the hook. They project a few movies onto the walls and play some typewriter clacks and chatter out of the speakers as well, to bring the place alive a bit.
The rest of the grounds reminded me of a Boy’s Own Adventure. You can walk round the back of the house and see the gate and sentry box where the dispatch riders roared in to collect the daily intercepts. You can have a snoop around the garages as well, filled with period bikes and vintage cars. They even have a few cycle sheds filled with rusty old pushbikes with bells and baskets on the front.
It’s not until you get halfway round the campus that you’ll finally see the pretty lake and famous brown brick mansion beyond. The mansion is probably the least interesting of all the buildings, which is a bit weird, because there’s not a lot to actually look at inside – just a very nice-looking library and a few function rooms laid out with tables and chairs.
So is Bletchley worth a visit? That all depends on whether you like the war. This place is all about the information boards. If you can’t be bothered to read those then it’s hardly worth going.
As for the town centre… save yourself an hour and give it a miss. There’s absolutely nothing to see in Bletchley itself. It’s just a lot of peeling billboards, boarded-up windows and bin bags on the pavement. But now that I come to think of it, it was probably the perfect place to try and hide a top-secret facility because no one was going to bother bombing Bletchley – it looks like it’s already been bombed!
If you enjoy this then try Churchill War Rooms; Imperial War Museum and RAF Museum. There’s another Enigma machine on show at the Science Museum, along with some more information about the earliest computers