Bletchley Park Tour

Bletchley Park: a unique community

Wartime Bletchley Park seethed with life, intellectual stimulus, individuality and eccentricity. It was a hotbed of revolutionary thinking, producing ideas whose practical application in time of crisis preserved freedoms, saved lives and changed the way the world communicated.

The idiosyncratic recruitment system resulted in a fascinating community. That community was meritocratic, especially in the context of the time. People came from diverse backgrounds and what mattered was an ability to struggle in pursuit of the aim, to take radical leaps of imagination, to innovate, to be pioneering. Linguists, mathematicians, technologists, logisticians, chess players, crossword experts, administrators, technicians, builders, messengers, landladies, caterers and gardeners all played their part.

Bletchley Park was the birthplace of the communications revolution, the cradle of the knowledge age. It was a community that changed the future.

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