Bletchley Park

body, history A country house and grounds some 50 miles

North of London, England, where highly secret work deciphering

intercepted German military radio messages was carried out

during World War Two. Thousands of people were working there

at the end of the war, including a number of early computer

pioneers such as Alan Turing.

The nature and scale of the work has only emerged recently,

with total secrecy having been observed by all the people

involved. Throughout the war, Bletchley Park produced highly

important strategic and tactical intelligence used by the

Allies, (Churchill's "golden eggs"), and it has been claimed

that the war in Europe was probably shortened by two years as

a result.

An exhibition of wartime code-breaking memorabilia, including

an entire working Colossus, restored by Tony Sale, can be

seen at Bletchley Park on alternate weekends.

The Computer Conservation Society (CCS), a specialist group

of the British Computer Society runs a museum on the site

that includes a working Elliot mainframe computer and many

early minicomputers and microcomputers. The CCS hope to

have substantial facilities for storage and restoration of old

artifacts, as well as archive, library and research

facilities.

Telephone: Bletchley Park Trust office [phone]

(office hours and open weekends).

(1998-12-18)