Bletchley Park

As part of our "honeymoon" Catriona and I did a series of day trips around the South and Midlands of our not-so-little island. We are both members of the National Trust but don't often have time to visit all the locations on offer. We saw some lovely homes and parks and with Catriona having studied history she made a very capable tour-guide :)

One place that is worth a special mention is Bletchley Park. Sadly, it isn't part of the National Trust and receives no Government Funding (well done to Milton Keynes Council for giving £600,000 for urgent restoration).



It was a really good day out and well worth a visit if you are in the area. You really should take the tour which is included in the entrance fee which gives you the fascinating history of the place. Ideally you should be prepared to spend about 6 hours there and possibly longer if you enjoy looking at vintage computers as they have a computer museum there too. They have a working reconstruction of the worlds first programmable computer and it operated in parallel! The Colossus computer is truly a marvel of engineering especially when you consider it was built in 1943.

Here is my slightly blurry photo of it:



The tape reader can be seen to the right. It was in operation at the time of the photo so you can't see the individual holes.

Bletchley Park has so much to offer (my little post doesn't do it justice) and almost entirely supported by entrance fees and donations - go and visit it! :)