I have a not so secret love of older homes, so visiting Bletchley Park was an obvious choice for me. I don't watch movies very often, and I am no history buff. Essentially, I visited Bletchley to see an old house. I wasn't disappointed by the results, but the history was enthralling...and I do mean enthralling.
Within the walls of the Bletchley estate, a major intelligence group was compiled to break German encoded messages. These messages were broken by citizens who were good at doing word puzzles and by Allan Turing, a man who refused to get lost in the micro and instead focussed on the macro. His focus lead to his creation of a code-breaking machine. Essentially, this code-breaking endeavor is estimated to have saved 2 million lives.
Bletchley Park wasn't simply a war museum, or a really cool old home. It was also a preservation/conservation museum. After the war, the endeavor at Bletchley was kept hidden from the public for 50 years. The buildings were allowed to fall into complete disrepair. It was only when buildings were to be torn down that efforts were made to reestablish the buildings and retain the history.
Bletchley park was meant to be a casual day spent seeing a neat house. Instead it was a day learning of the original owners of the mansion, the perceptions and experiences of English people during WW2, and the conservation and preservation efforts needed to reestablish the location. Bletchley itself is puzzle of sorts. There are still unknowns, and they have found treasures even as they believe they have found all that they will. One brief and unassuming train ride from London yields a wealth of information and context that is unavailable anywhere else in the world.
Bletchley park was meant to be a casual day spent seeing a neat house. Instead it was a day learning of the original owners of the mansion, the perceptions and experiences of English people during WW2, and the conservation and preservation efforts needed to reestablish the location. Bletchley itself is puzzle of sorts. There are still unknowns, and they have found treasures even as they believe they have found all that they will. One brief and unassuming train ride from London yields a wealth of information and context that is unavailable anywhere else in the world.