A visit to Bletchley Park
Details
Hi, I now moved this, last time I promise, to Sat 26 June because there are indoor exhibition spaces that I think may not be open yet between 17 May and 21 June. I would rather go when we can see everything.
Can you make it on 26 June?
The entrance fee is £21, plus train ticket, plus £1 towards the meetup organiser's fee.
Let's go visit Bletchley Park!
During the second world war, Bletchley Park pulled together mathematicians, statisticians, typists, office workers, motorbike dispatch riders and everybody else who helped break the Enigma codes and enabled the free world win the war. You can also call it the birth place of modern information technology. Fascinating!
I have long wanted to see the place I heard so much about. I have seen films and visited exhibitions. I promised myself that I would go to the place itself one day.
Advanced booked entry tickets are £21 adults (please check for concessions). I can't garantee these prices, please double-check the website (link below). They are open until 5pm.
You need to book your own Bletchley Park ticket in advance, plus your train ticket. Trains go from Lond Euston.
You can also go by coach at around £10 and meet us there, a coach may take three times as long though.
Please double check the Bletchley Park website in case I got anything wrong: https://bletchleypark.org.uk/visit-us
Did you know... The official name for the site was 'Government Code and Cypher School' or GC&CS for short - but to avoid drawing attention to this code breaking centre, the powers that be decided to call Bletchley Park: 'Government Communcations Headquarter' instead. You could see this as the official mail address on an envelope displayed at the recent 'Ciphers to Cyber Security' exhibition at the Science Museum.
This is obviously abbreviated GCHQ - so that's where that comes from. Apparently the place was referred to as B.P. by those who worked there, it was also knows as 'Station X' (X for the Roman numberal for 10), and even 'London Signals Intelligence Centre' (I bet that wasn't on any envelope the dispatch riders were biking in and out of there every day). The postal address that staff had to use was "Room 47, Foreign Office"
Here's the Wikipedia entry:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bletchley_Park