HRH The Duchess of Cambridge opens renovated Bletchley Park
The £8 million, Heritage Lottery Funded restoration project has seen more building work on the site than at any time since 1944, at the peak of war.
The work carried out over the last year allows visitors to experience what it was like for the Codebreakers working at Government Code and Cypher School during WWII.
It has turned derelict buildings which were almost lost to history entirely into a fitting, permanent tribute to the thousands of men and women whose hard work, diligence and innovation helped shorten the war and changed the way we all live today.
Codebreaking Huts 3 and 6, where Enigma messages sent by the German Army and Air Force were decrypted, translated and analysed for vital intelligence, have been lovingly restored to their wartime condition. They tell the stories of what happened inside them through the use of light-touch interpretation such as sounds, projected images and authentic set dressing.
Block C, where Hollerith punch-card machines carried out rapid analysis of encrypted message systems to assist the Codebreakers, has been returned to its wartime appearance and atmosphere, and is now a vibrant new Visitor Centre with an introductory exhibition, Secrets Revealed - Introducing Bletchley Park, plus shop, cafe and all necessary comforts for Bletchley Park’s hundreds of thousands of visitors.
