<body, history> A country house and grounds some 50 miles
North of London, England, where highly secret work deciphering
intercepted German military radio messages was carried out
during World War Two. Thousands of people were working there
at the end of the war, including a number of early computer
pioneers such as Alan Turing.
The nature and scale of the work has only emerged recently,
with total secrecy having been observed by all the people
involved. Throughout the war, Bletchley Park produced highly
important strategic and tactical intelligence used by the
Allies, (Churchill's "golden eggs"), and it has been claimed
that the war in Europe was probably shortened by two years as
a result.
An exhibition of wartime code-breaking memorabilia, including
an entire working Colossus, restored by Tony Sale, can be
seen at Bletchley Park on alternate weekends.
The Computer Conservation Society (CCS), a specialist group
of the British Computer Society runs a museum on the site
that includes a working Elliot mainframe computer and many
early minicomputers and microcomputers. The CCS hope to
have substantial facilities for storage and restoration of old
artifacts, as well as archive, library and research
facilities.
Telephone: Bletchley Park Trust office +44 (908) 640 404
(office hours and open weekends).
