Bletchley Park Renovations Start Soon
Work soon will begin on a major renovation of Bletchley Park — the wartime home for Great Britain’s codebreaking effort. Alan Turing was at the heart of the effort to crack Germany’s Enigma code. Historians say the British codebreaking effort shortened the war by two years and saved millions of lives.
In the decades after the war, Bletchley Park fell into disrepair. Eventually, the facility was preserved and certain areas of it restored. However, much restoration work remains because parts of the codebreaking center are dilapidated. A £7.4 million grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund, along with private and corporate support is funding the restoration project. The BBC reports that renovation work will begin very soon.
The project is due to be completed by June of 2014, in time for the 70th anniversary of the D-Day landings. “If Bletchley could do it on time then I’ve got to do it on time,” says project manager Steve Prowse. “Some of the Bletchley atmosphere rubs off. If they were able to do this sort of work in these sort of conditions, then there’s no excuse why we can’t make it work.” Read more.