April 2024 Women were the backbone of Bletchley Park during World War Two. At its peak in January 1945, the workforce was 75% female, but even at the start of the war, women comprised a significant portion of GC&CS’s numbers. Women were recruited in a variety of ways, but a significant quantity of them, particularly early in the war, were selected direct from prominent universities such as Oxford, St Andrews and Cambridge. Over the last few years, a team of members of Newnham College Cambridge have been researching the women from their college who worked at Bletchley Park and in other wa ..read more

March 2024 Bletchley Park is famous as the home of World War 2 codebreaking. But what was there before the Government Code and Cypher School moved in? Who built Bletchley Park, and what remains of the pre-war country estate? In this episode, Research Historian Dr David Kenyon and Head of Content Erica Munro examine the people who made Bletchley Park their home prior to World War 2. Sir Herbert Leon and his family bought, expanded and lived in the now-familiar Mansion, stamping their individual style on the design of the building and the estate. Surviving historical records shed an intriguing ..read more

February 2024 In 2023, Bletchley Park Trust completed its biggest refurbishment project to date – a £13 million, three-phase project, to open up wartime buildings at the heart of the site for the very first time. The final phase saw Block E, once the wartime Communications hub of Bletchley Park, transformed into two new resources –the Block E Learning Centre – which includes eight learning spaces able to accommodate learners from primary school pupils to students in higher education – and the Fellowship Auditorium, a state-of-the-art, 250-seat, presentation and event space. In this special ..read more

January 2024 Eighty years ago, in January 1944, the first Colossus computer was delivered to Bletchley Park. This machine and the nine that followed it have acquired legendary status within the story of World War Two codebreaking. The machines have also been described as the world’s first large-scale electronic digital computers – direct precursors of the digital world in which we live today. But in 1944 the computer age still lay far in the future. These machines were built for a specific and vital purpose, to assist with the breaking of the wireless messages of Germany’s senior commanders ..read more

January 2024  Eighty years ago, in January 1944, the first Colossus computer was delivered to Bletchley Park. This machine and the nine that followed it have acquired legendary status within the story of World War Two codebreaking. The machines have also been described as the world’s first large-scale electronic digital computers – direct precursors of the digital world in which we live today.  But in 1944 the computer age still lay far in the future. These machines were built for a specific and vital purpose, to assist with the breaking of the wireless messages of Germany’s senior ..read more

December 2023 Eighty years ago this month Britain was marking its fifth Christmas of the war with still no end in sight. D-Day still lay in the future and the campaigns in Italy and on the Eastern Front ground on. However on Boxing Day 1943 the Royal Navy achieved a significant, if grim success over the German Navy, sinking the Scharnhorst, one of the few last remaining large warships in the enemy fleet. This victory would help to secure the safety of Allied convoys to Russia for the remaining 18 months of the war. The codebreakers of Bletchley Park played a key role in helping the navy to ..read more

October 2023 The fight up the Italian peninsula involved some of the most arduous battles of the war for Allied soldiers, but they were being supported at every stage by intelligence from Bletchley Park. ULTRA intelligence helped inform Allied strategy in Italy, kept commanders constantly up-to-date about enemy forces, and sometimes proved the difference between victory and defeat on the battlefield. In this ‘It Happened Here’ episode, Bletchley Park’s Research Officer Dr Thomas Cheetham will tell us how this difficult and inconclusive campaign can also be seen as one of the most successful ..read more

August 2023 This month we examine the often-overlooked story of GC&CS’s work on diplomatic codes and ciphers.  This vital work predated work on military codes, beginning when CG&CS was created in 1919. Work continued throughout World War Two, with some staff eventually leaving Bletchley Park to carry on as the Government Communications Bureau in Berkeley Street London. In this special episode our Research Historian Dr David Kenyon is joined by GCHQ’s Departmental Historian Dr David Abrutat, to discuss all things diplomatic and beyond. This episode features the following contri ..read more

June 2023 Who chose Bletchley Park – a vacant estate in Buckinghamshire – as the wartime home of the Codebreakers? That decision was made by the man in charge of the Secret Intelligence Service, known as ‘C’ – Admiral Sir Hugh Sinclair. A very public man with a very secretive profession, Sinclair was widely-known and well-respected. He passed away just a couple of months after World War Two began in 1939, but his influence was far-reaching.  Bletchley Park Trust is proud to be displaying, for the first time, a collection of medals awarded to Sinclair throughout his life. This recent gen ..read more

May 2023 Like many heritage organisations, Bletchley Park Trust holds a collection within its storerooms. And we are always seeking to improve how it’s managed and taken care of. Now, due to the support of foundations, trusts and generous individuals, we’ve created a new Collection Centre. Once the building had been refurbished and kitted out, the curatorial team had the mammoth task of moving and rehousing the collection of over 400,000 items: from intelligence reports to teleprinter components, clothing to coded messages. The new Collection Centre was completed in October 2022 and boasts f ..read more