When I tell people I live in Milton Keynes, England, they usually say one of three things. If they’re not from the UK, they will usually say they have never heard of it; if they are from the UK they’ll either say, “The place with concrete cows and all the roundabouts!” or “Oh, Milton Keynes, the new city. There’s no history there, right?”
I always take great pleasure in correcting them on the last point. Although Milton Keynes itself is a relatively new city, founded as recently as 1967 and only officially declared a city by the Queen in 2022, the towns and villages that are encompassed within its boundaries have thousands of years of history. There have been findings such as woolly mammoth tusks and flint hand axes in the area dating back to Palaeolithic times, 500,000 years ago, a Bronze Age society lived here 4,500 years ago and there was an Iron age settlement around 2,500 years ago. The Romans lived here around 2,000 years ago, building towns, villas, and roads, some of which are still used today – Watling Street/the old A5 and what is now the A421 to Buckingham. There is so much more history to share, and if you want to find out more visit the MK Insight website for a brief history of Milton Keynes.
My favourite historical facts to share with people are: the oldest iron bridge in the world that is still in constant use, which was built in 1810, is in Newport Pagnell, a town next to Milton Keynes and the one I grew up in; and that Milton Keynes is the home of Bletchley Park where the Enigma code was cracked during the Second World War, shortening it by at least two years and savings thousands, if not millions, of lives.
I last visited Bletchley Park about 20 years ago when I was a Year 5 teacher in a local primary school and took our students there on a school trip. It is very different to how I remember it, with more buildings restored, updated displays and video presentations throughout. One of my friends from when I lived in Shenzhen, China, and who I hadn’t seen for more than five years stayed for the weekend and was interested in visiting Bletchley Park, so we made a day of it.
One great offer the Park has is that if you are a local resident you can get half price admission, simply by filling in a short form (available to download from their website) and bringing proof of address and ID. Every ticket gives you entry for a whole year, so you can visit time and time again. There is so much to see and do that it is impossible to do it all in one day, so it is fantastic that you can visit as many times as you want for a single admission fee.
We decided to follow the suggested route that would let us explore the story of Bletchley Park through time, beginning with Block C which houses the Visitors Centre and introduction to the Park. The displays were comprehensive and informative, with a combination of text, quotes, photos and video, which you followed around a one-way route through the building. There was also a coffee shop, where we picked up a hot drink, and a shop full of WW2 and Bletchley Park souvenirs, books, resources, and gifts, which we looked at on the way out.
Next stop was the Mansion, the most recognisable building on site. Built as a family home in the 1870s, the Mansion was the first part of Bletchley Park to house the Codebreakers from 1938. Inside, there are first-hand accounts, maps of the Park, photos, and examples of the codes they deciphered, and some of the rooms have been recreated to look how they would have at the time. Another room housed a collection of stories from people who worked at the Park about what life was like here at the time.
After lunch in the Hut 4 Café, the garages and stableyard were next on the tour, with a wartime transport exhibition as well as something a little more up-to-date – a unit used by the military in conflict abroad.
The Huts were built when it became obvious that there wasn’t enough space in the Mansion for everyone to work efficiently, and more staff were needed for the task at hand – breaking the German Enigma code. Bletchley Park grew from a staff of 150 in 1938 to almost 9,000 people by 1945. For me, the Huts were were the most interesting part of our visit. This is where the majority of people working at the Park spent most of their time, segregated into small rooms where they worked solidly on individual tasks without ever knowing the whole picture. Again, many of these rooms have been recreated with the addition of audio and video footage to emulate the sounds and experience the staff would have had. Huts 11 and 11A were the home of the Bombe machines developed by Alan Turing and Gordon Welchman to increase the speed at which the Enigma cipher keys could be worked out, and Hut 8 is where Alan Turing’s office was.
The Teleprinter Building houses an exhibition all about D-Day: Interception, Intelligence, Invasion, including an immersive cinematic experience exploring Bletchley Park’s secret role in the operation’s success. One of the many Bletchley Park volunteers introduced the show, explaining a little about the background and the people involved in it.
Block A, which only opened to the public in 2022, was once where staff translated and analysed naval Enigma messages and now has interactive exhibits demonstrating how the different processes worked and how Bletchley Park operated.
We finished our tour by visiting the Block B Museum, which has an exhibition about Alan Turing – including the formal apology for his treatment from the former Prime Minister – as well as information about the German Lorenz ciphers and how the Government Code & Cypher School developed into today’s GCHQ.
Even though we didn’t quite see everything (we missed out the National Radio Centre and a temporary exhibition on The Art of Data, as well as the National Museum of Computing, which is in a different part of the Park), there was a lot to take in and by the end of our visit, we were almost overwhelmed with all the information.
Bletchley Park is a key part of our history and I believe it is vitally important to learn about such tragic events as the World Wars partly so that we can try and make sure not to repeat them, and partly to honour the people who contributed so much to ensure we could have the lives we do today.
