In a change to the normal pickup arrangements, the coach will leave from the Langstone Quays hotel. This arrangement will save around £4 per member off the cost of the trip. The booking form gives you the opportunity to request or offer a car share to the hotel where there is free parking as well as an opportunity for a coffee and a loo stop.
The £46 visit cost will cover: coach hire and parking; driver gratuity; entrance to Bletchley Park; and a multimedia guide. You will also be able to return to the museum for a year without charge.
There will be comfort stops on the way to and from our destination.
Bletchley Park
Once the top-secret home of the World War Two Codebreakers, Bletchley Park is now a major attraction to visitors.
Immersive films, interactive displays, museum collections and faithfully recreated WW2 rooms will guide you on a journey to discover the past at Bletchley Park. Exhibitions, set within beautifully restored historic buildings, tell the story of this once top-secret operation. Find out more about the brilliant minds and complex machines that made this vital work possible, and discover the global impact Bletchley Park had on the outcome of WW2.
There have been many updates and improvements since we last visited Bletchley nine years ago so it is well worth another visit. Especially if you didn't know:
- Without help from Poland, we would never have broken any of the codes
- There were more important contributors to the codebreaking effort than Alan Turing
- There were many different Enigma codes, and each had to be broken every day
- There was more than one Enigma machine; the basic model had 158,962,555,217,826,360,000 possible settings, the German Navy model was more complex
- The Lorenz code was even more difficult to break than Enigma, it required the world's first digital processor: Colossus
- Having broken the codes, processing the information, distributing useful intelligence, while keeping Bletchley's activities secret was a mammoth task needing completely new processes and procedures
It's a fascinating story. There's more information about what to see and do here.
The mansion
Not the most attractive piece of architecture, but where the codebreaking effort started and the eventual hub of a huge network based in Bletchley but spanning the world.
The huts
Where code breaks were created and the resulting data was filed, cross-referenced and converted into useful intelligence. Find out about the fatal flaw built into the Enigma machines.
The bombes
The machines that used the code breaks to find Enigma settings. Named by the women operators as the "Hell hole". Find out why they were named after a Polish ice cream.
The blocks
As war progressed and codebreaking efforts became increasingly successful, an army of personnel was needed to keep up with all the incoming data needing new accommodation blocks.
Today they house various new exhibitions and galleries.
The teleprinter building
Once the communications hub of Bletchley Park, now the home of a new, multimedia exhibition titled "D-Day: interception, intelligence, invasion".
The RSGB National Radio Centre
A showcase for radio communications technology. Operated by the Radio Society of Great Britain, in partnership with the Bletchley Park Trust, this exhibition traces the development of radio communications from inception through to the current day.
The National Museum of Computing
This is a separate museum that has its own admission fee (not included in the visit cost) and entrance.
It traces the development of computing: from the Turing-Welchman Bombe and the Colossus, through the large systems and mainframes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, to the rise of personal computing, mobile computing and the internet.
Accessibility
The Museum has step-free access.
All the exhibitions are positioned at ground floor level. Ramps are installed on site for easy access. A disabled access lift is available to use to enter the exhibition area in Block A (The Intelligence Factory and The Art of Data).
A limited amount of wheelchairs are available to borrow from the Visitor Centre.
More details here.
Links to allow you to pay for your visit by card will appear here if you log in, have made a booking and have not yet paid
Your bookings
Cost of the visit is £46 per HIU3A member
There are 53 bookable places.
Number awaiting payment: 14, confirmed bookings: 6, waiting list entries: 0.
To make a booking, add yourself to the waiting list, or see the status for your booking(s) you need to log in. Click here to do that now.