Bletchley Park

About

Britain's Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS) relocates to Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire on 15 August 1939. The site becomes the Allies' principal codebreaking center during the Second World War, successfully breaking Germany's Enigma and Lorenz ciphers. Cryptanalysts including Alan Turing, Gordon Welchman, Joan Clarke, Mavis Lever, Bill Tutte, and Hugh Alexander work here. The team develops the electromechanical Bombe machine, and in December 1943 completes a prototype of Colossus, regarded as the world's first programmable electronic digital computer. At its peak in January 1945, roughly 8,995 people work at Bletchley Park, about 75 percent of them women. The Bletchley Park Trust is established in 1991; the site opens to visitors in 1993 and holds its formal inauguration in July 1994. A major £8 million restoration project is completed in June 2014.