Help for Bletchley Park
The BBC reports that Bletchley Park, also known as Station X, the top secret HQ for WWII code-breakers, will receive a £330,000 grant from English Heritage. A further £600,000 funding programme is also under discussion.
This injection of funds should help to calm fears about the dilapidation of the historic site, which prompted a recent joint letter to the Times from academics, voicing their concerns about Bletchley.
At the end of WWII the pioneering research work done on computing and cryptography was declared to remain top secret by Winston Churchill and suppressed. Churchill referred to the staff at Bletchley as "My geese that laid the golden eggs and never cackled." Much of the original hardware installed at Bletchley was broken up and burned.
Since then Bletchley Park has had a rocky history, nearly being knocked down on several occasions so the land could be used for development. In 1992 the Bletchley Park Trust was formed. Now known as the National Codes Centre the site acts as a computing museum. It houses recreations of the Colossus and Bombe machines used by the code breakers and provides venues for weddings and corporate events.
(Terry Relph-Knight)
(trk)
