All,
English Heritage spent a great deal of time recently surveying Bletchley
Park (in particular buildings for which there was little information in
the public domain, either due to the original information being lost or
still classified)
Said report and survey has now been published on the English Heritage
website - see:
http://tinyurl.com/45avu
Importantly, comments are invited by English Heritage.
Recently a response to this turned up in a newspaper local to the Park:
http://tinyurl.com/4aqgo
Some would say that currently the most "significant parts" of the site
as projected to the public revolve solely around the Enigma, at the
expense of everything else for which the Park has been known over the
years.
Lots of exhibits have already been scaled down and squeezed into much
smaller premises; the military vehicles section is being demolished
despite the part which such vehicles played in the war.
The future of the Computer Museum and the rebuilt Colossus within H
Block (and indeed the storage area within D Block) are very much
uncertain, and a move to smaller premises is certainly not out of the
question. Nobody seems to know the exact future of H Block but as it
currently houses the museum and Colossus, and was the site of the
world's first purpose-built computer room, to my mind it seems both the
ideal location for its current occupants (with great scope for
expansion!), plus a valuable bit of the UK's heritage which should not
be lost, and also of great historical importance to the information age.
(Note that as the whole site expanded during the war, D Block took on a
lot of the work of the smaller Huts and so played a vital role, and C
Block held an enormous Hollerith punched card section, so they are not
without merit either; both currently lay almost derelict though)
Realistically I'm not sure what anyone can do other than leave suitable
comments for English Heritage about the importance which the Park played
within the computing scene in order to ensure the survival of the huge
amount of artifacts which we have. (Given the central location within
the country my feeling is that it's also an ideal site for some form of
national computer museum, but I don't know if that's relevant or not :-)
I'm sure this will be of interest to UK residents on this list anyway,
and quite possibly many of you further afield.
(the less said about the way in which our current Government treats the
heritage of this country the better, of course!)
cheers,
Jules
Received on Mon Jul 26 2004 - 11:33:51 BST