Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park stands in Bletchley, a district of Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire. It began as a country house bought in 1877 by architect Samuel Lipscomb Seckham. In 1883 Sir Herbert Samuel Leon enlarged the mansion, mixing Victorian Gothic, Tudor and Dutch Baroque styles. After his death in 1926 the house remained occupied by his widow until 1937. In 1938 a builder planned to demolish it for housing, but Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair of MI6 bought the site in May 1938. During the Second World War it became the main Allied code-breaking centre. The Government Code and Cypher School moved in on 15 August 1939. Teams led by figures such as John Tiltman, Dilwyn Knox, Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman broke German Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. The workforce was 75 per cent women, many recruited through crossword competitions. They built Colossus, the world’s first programmable digital electronic computer. Winston Churchill visited in September 1941 and ordered all needed support supplied at once. Visitors today see the mansion and wartime huts where the work was done. The huts housed sections for naval, military and air intelligence. A telephone exchange, teleprinter room, kitchen and dining room occupied the ground floor. Elmers School nearby became offices for commercial and diplomatic sections. Bombs in November 1940 damaged Hut 4, which was quickly repaired. The site also includes displays about the codebreakers and their machines.