Bletchley Park
Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park

Bletchley Park

Overview
Episodes

Details

Bletchley Park is the home of British codebreaking and a birthplace of modern information technology. It played a major role in World War Two, producing secret intelligence which had a direct and profound influence on the outcome of the conflict. The site is now a museum and heritage attraction, open daily. The Bletchley Park Podcast brings you fascinating stories from Veterans, staff and volunteers on the significance and continued relevance of this site today.

Recent Episodes

E163 - The Women of Newnham College
APR 25, 2024
E163 - The Women of Newnham College
<div>April 2024<br> <br> Women were the backbone of Bletchley Park during World War Two. At its peak in January 1945, the workforce was 75% female, but even at the start of the war, women comprised a significant portion of GC&amp;CS’s numbers. Women were recruited in a variety of ways, but a significant quantity of them, particularly early in the war, were selected direct from prominent universities such as Oxford, St Andrews and Cambridge.<br> <br> Over the last few years, a team of members of Newnham College Cambridge have been researching the women from their college who worked at Bletchley Park and in other wartime roles. They have discovered, astonishingly, more than 70 students and alumnae were recruited to BP. After close collaboration with the team at Bletchley Park Trust, a new exhibition presents their findings and reveals some hidden histories.<br> <br> In this episode, recorded at Newnham College, Bletchley Park’s Head of Content, Erica Munro, meets the three women behind this new research and we visit the exhibition to find out more about their discoveries. Dr Sally Waugh, Dr Gill Sutherland and Newnham College Archivist Frieda Midgley share what they’ve uncovered, and what surprised them, about the Newnham women who worked at Bletchley Park.<br> <br> This episode features our Oral History recordings of three of those Newnham women:<br> <br> Sister St. Paul<br> Lady Elisabeth Reed<br> Mrs Brenda Lang<br> <br> Image: Reproduced with the permission of Dr John Clarke via Kerry Howard from her research into the life of Joan Clarke.<br> <br> #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #Newnham,</div>
play-circle
88 MIN
E162 - Before the Codebreakers
MAR 23, 2024
E162 - Before the Codebreakers
<div>March 2024<br> <br> Bletchley Park is famous as the home of World War 2 codebreaking. But what was there before the Government Code and Cypher School moved in? Who built Bletchley Park, and what remains of the pre-war country estate?<br> <br> In this episode, Research Historian Dr David Kenyon and Head of Content Erica Munro examine the people who made Bletchley Park their home prior to World War 2. Sir Herbert Leon and his family bought, expanded and lived in the now-familiar Mansion, stamping their individual style on the design of the building and the estate. Surviving historical records shed an intriguing light on the Leons, their philanthropy, interests and impact on the local community.<br> <br> We also hear from Professor Abigail Green of Brasenose College, Oxford University, an expert on Jewish Country Houses, to discover more about the social context of the family who ‘made’ Bletchley Park.<br> <br> Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2024<br> <br> #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2,</div>
play-circle
56 MIN
E161 - Learning: Past, Present and Future
FEB 23, 2024
E161 - Learning: Past, Present and Future
<div>February 2024<br> <br> In 2023, Bletchley Park Trust completed its biggest refurbishment project to date – a £13 million, three-phase project, to open up wartime buildings at the heart of the site for the very first time.<br> <br> The final phase saw Block E, once the wartime Communications hub of Bletchley Park, transformed into two new resources – the Block E Learning Centre – which includes eight learning spaces able to accommodate learners from primary school pupils to students in higher education – and the Fellowship Auditorium, a state-of-the-art, 250-seat, presentation and event space.<br> <br> In this special episode, we join Lily Dean, Learning Manager, and Vicki Pipe, Head of Audiences and Programmes, as they give us tour of the new spaces, and reveal the inspiring activities learners can enjoy as part of our award-winning learning programme. Dr David Kenyon, Research Historian, and Dr Thomas Cheetham, Research Officer, also bring to life the wartime and post-war history of this once closed off building.<br> <br> Image: Learners in Block E  ©Bletchley Park Trust 2024<br> <br> #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2,</div>
play-circle
48 MIN
E160 - Colossus in Context Part 2
JAN 31, 2024
E160 - Colossus in Context Part 2
<div>January 2024<br> <br> Eighty years ago, in January 1944, the first Colossus computer was delivered to Bletchley Park. This machine and the nine that followed it have acquired legendary status within the story of World War Two codebreaking. The machines have also been described as the world’s first large-scale electronic digital computers – direct precursors of the digital world in which we live today.<br> <br> But in 1944 the computer age still lay far in the future. These machines were built for a specific and vital purpose, to assist with the breaking of the wireless messages of Germany’s senior commanders, enciphered using the Lorenz cipher machine and known at BP as ‘Tunny’.<br> <br> What role did Colossus actually play in the breaking of Tunny? The Colossus machines were members of a wider family of machines, and the Newmanry – the department in which they operated - was only one of several teams at Bletchley Park, all of whom were crucial to the successful breaking of the cipher.<br> <br> In this ‘It Happened Here’ episode, Bletchley Park historians Dr Tom Cheetham and Dr David Kenyon are here to place ’Colossus in Context’ and examine where exactly these machines fitted into the effort to break Tunny.<br> <br> Many thanks to Dr Ben Thomson for voicing our archival documents.<br> <br> Image: ©Crown. Reproduced by kind permission, Director, GCHQ<br> <br> #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #Colossus80,</div>
play-circle
51 MIN
E159 - Colossus in Context Part 1
JAN 18, 2024
E159 - Colossus in Context Part 1
<div>January 2024 <br> <br> Eighty years ago, in January 1944, the first Colossus computer was delivered to Bletchley Park. This machine and the nine that followed it have acquired legendary status within the story of World War Two codebreaking. The machines have also been described as the world’s first large-scale electronic digital computers – direct precursors of the digital world in which we live today. <br> <br> But in 1944 the computer age still lay far in the future. These machines were built for a specific and vital purpose, to assist with the breaking of the wireless messages of Germany’s senior commanders, enciphered using the Lorenz cipher machine and known at BP as ‘Tunny’. <br> <br> What role did Colossus actually play in the breaking of Tunny? The Colossus machines were members of a wider family of machines, and the Newmanry – the department in which they operated - was only one of several teams at Bletchley Park, all of whom were crucial to the successful breaking of the cipher.<br> <br> In this ‘It Happened Here’ episode, Bletchley Park historians Dr Tom Cheetham and Dr David Kenyon are here to place ’Colossus in Context’ and examine where exactly these machines fitted into the effort to break Tunny.<br> <br> This episode features the following contributors from our Oral History Archive:<br> <br> Jerry Roberts<br> Betty Webb<br> <br> Image: ©Bletchley Park Trust 2024<br> <br> #BPark, #Bletchleypark, #WW2, #Colossus80,</div>
play-circle
58 MIN