Bletchley Park Has Been Broken Up!
Andrew Spencer
Part-time freelance - IT, Operations & Marketing. Project management and consultation.
Bletchley Park Has Been Broken Up!
This is an update to a post I made in 2014. It is about the fence which I referred to as the Berlin Wall. Now it's fully installed, It has fragmented the historic Bletchley Park site ...
Why am I talking about this now? Well, I was at the Park all day Saturday last weekend 'guiding' (in the loosest sense) some people around both Bletchley Park and TNMOC. So I experienced the effects of the Wall first hand – for the first time.
Back in Feb 2014 the gates were left open, now they are closed and they have been since May last year. Bletchley Park customers are being seriously inconvenienced just as I predicted they would be.
Don't get me wrong. Much of what the Bletchley Park Trust has been doing is very good. The pedestrianisation is great, the reconstruction and return to wartime conditions of Huts 3 and 6 is really good (incredibly atmospheric), as are the new exhibits in the Mansion – the Library and Commander Denniston's office.
Other aspects such as the exhibits in Hut 8 and Hut 11 are not so good – to be honest a touch boring - and to a significant extent misleading or wrong! Having said that what is right and good far outweighs this.
So why is this fence a real problem?
Well, if you want to visit the working reconstruction of Colossus from Bletchley Park, you have a very long walk! The most significant gate closure is by Hut 11 – this is potentially the shortest route to TNMOC.
I was standing by this gate on Saturday and, because I was wearing a TNMOC polo shirt, I was asked by two couples why they could not go through the gate to ease the walk to TNMOC to see Colossus.
There was only one answer I could give. The fence is "there to inconvenience you". There is no other answer. The fence is meant to be a security fence, but it's too low, has no barrier on top of it and if you drive up to the gates they open automatically!
Everyone visiting TNMOC from Bletchley Park has to go back down the hill to the Block C visitor centre main entrance/exit and walk back up the hill (past their own cars). Most just get in their cars and go home ...
I am not sure either couple believed me at the time about what I said, but I caught up with them an hour or so later at TNMOC. They agreed with me, especially as they had seen a car drive up to the gate in question whilst they were walking up to TNMOC and the gate opened! Others escaped from Bletchley Park while they watched, so they all agreed about the 'inconvenience' bit.
Numbers visiting the working reconstruction of Colossus, a key part of the Bletchley Park story, have declined dramatically. What a waste of a visitor experience. As my friends said, there should be a joint ticket and seeing Colossus working should be facilitated.
All in all the fence is as evil as it always has been!
The wall they've built is divisive, offensive and serves no good purpose. Why our money - in the form of Heritage Lottery funding - paid for it I do not know!
Read the full, unabridged version at www.andrewspencer.uk.com.
Call me on +44 (0) 1908 565460 if you'd like to know more.
? 2015 by Andrew Spencer
Providing support in a changing environment
7 年So sad to hear that they are still dealing with legacy issues in such a clumsy way. I had hoped that they had moved beyond this years ago. Having so many sub groups in the same site was never going to be easy but for the sake of the nations heritage they need to learn to work together !
Tech Lead | NodeJS | React | TypeScript | Software Engineering
9 年It's not about granting entry, as all the gate achieves is a long walk for the determined or hides it from BP visitors. You buy a separate ticket in Block H where TNMOC is based.
Editor, publisher, journalist, content manager, communications champion and media relations professional
9 年Isn't the fence there because Bletchley Park and TNMOC are two separate museums with two separate entrance fees, purchasing an entrance fee to one does not grant you access to the other. Is that right?