An Essay by David Marlow
I learnt about Bletchley Park (BP) in the 1990s. Being an ex-servicemen flying in the RAF, I was intrigued by every thing I heard about the site, visiting it several times over the years and reading about it avidly. I found Alan Turing’s biography by Andrew Hodges ‘Alan Turing the Enigma’ particularly interesting. It ended with his untimely death in nearby Hanslope. Many of my friends and family enjoyed the stories and some even endured visits led by me.
In the period 1999 to 2008 approximately, I organised business seminars in the ballroom in the main house at BP. These were for my company and were generally well attended by prospective customers who were not only interested in our software! Personal guided tours were always on hand. Later, in retirement, I revisited the site to photograph some of the artefacts for club photographic competitions. This was during the period of intense activity at BP when money had started flowing in for what became a major refurbishment project.
The post war period was not kind to BP. Following the amazing work that took place there with ‘up to 11,000 people per day working there’, the site was in effect handed over to the general Post Office (GPO) the forerunner of British Telecom. The main building was used as a training centre. Overwhelmed by the Maintenance task no doubt, the GPO sought to offload the site.
Wikipedia states: After the war it [BP] had various uses including as a teacher-training college and local GPO headquarters. By 1990 the huts in which the codebreakers worked were being considered for demolition and redevelopment. The Bletchley Park Trust was formed in February 1992 to save large portions of the site from development.
Sir Philip Duncombe was involved with the BP Trust from an early stage. His son, Sir David, relates that Sir Philip was chair of the Bletchley Park Trust from 1991 as the site was being prepared for handover to developers. He was instrumental in avoiding its loss to the nation as a historic site, and to the development of the museum that we enjoy today.
Sir David Duncombe
By the early 2000s, the estate was in a poor state of repair with many wooden huts actually rotting away. The brick and concrete blocks had in the main been abandoned too. The BP Trust started its amazing work to raise funds to save the site for the nation before the bulldozers moved in. And they very nearly did! National news bulletins eventually picked up the story saying how could we possibly abandon such an important site with so much history for our country?
BP’s success was in effect a major part of its problem. Until 1974, when ‘the Ultra Secret’ by FW Winterbotham was published, few of us knew anything about the place. We had little idea about what went on there, or what the outcome had been. At that stage, widely quoted statements like ‘BP codebreaking had saved the lives of millions’ …. and ‘shortened the Second World War by two years’ began to take root in the national psyche. It took a while; years in fact. An army of local volunteers spent time organising tours of BP for visitors and much else. Refurbishment started so the that main buildings became useable again. Visitor numbers started to increase.
Major players began to get involved with funding projects. This was a turning point for the Trust. Eventually, enough fund raising secures a major rebuild programme. Towards the end of the redevelopment, Sir Philip Duncombe greeted the Queen when she visited BP in 2011. There were several other Royal Visits, as Ealine Cooper, a BP Volunteer reports. The Royal Visit by The Duchess of Cambridge on 18th June 2014 took place to open the new Visitor Centre. This became the centre piece of BP and was a watershed moment. The site had now been transformed into a major tourist attraction with an assured future. But is was close run thing.
The purpose of this piece, however, is to highlight any Great Brickhill involvement in BP. Being only 5 miles away, and with thousands of personnel being billeted all over the countryside including Woburn Abbey for instance, there are likely to have been several local connections. These may have been as accommodation, as staff members at BP during WW2 of more recently as volunteers. I will leave ‘comments’ open for you to add anything you know.
During WW2 a number of personnel working at BP were billeted at The Manor, Great Brickhill during their period of duty at BP;
Sir David Duncombe
- Commander Denniston
- Nigel De Grey
- Colonel Jeffery
- Mrs Godfrey, wife of Admiral Godfrey
- D Babbage
- E Green
I have included a gallery of photos that I have taken over the years from about 1996 to 2017 which hope you enjoy. Some of the later ones are composites taken for competition work at our local camera club in Leighton Buzzard.
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