Master’s Away Weekend, Friday 16 to Sunday 18 May 2025
Friday 16 May 2025
The group arrived in the early afternoon at Woburn Hotel, Woburn Village, Bedfordshire. This is located in the fine village of Woburn, just up the road from one of the entrances to the Woburn deer park.
The group travelled by minibus to the Military Intelligence Museum, situated on a military base at Chicksands in central Bedfordshire. Here, following strict ID checks at the entrance, we were given a tour by 2 members of the museum’s staff. There is a very impressive display of material and artefacts relating to the collection, analysis and securing of military intelligence, from the Boer War onwards. One of the highlights is the Medmenham Collection, showing examples of aerial photography and image analysis. Everyone was in agreement that the staff were very informative, and clearly very enthusiastic about their subject, and that the museum contains a rich repository of information about this very important aspect of military activity.
During our return journey to Woburn, the driver’s route took us through the deer park. Later, the party gathered in the hotel bar, where some participated in an informal comparison of a well-known champagne and an established English sparkling wine. On this occasion, One-Nil to France. There followed a very good dinner at the hotel restaurant.
Saturday 17 May 2025
After breakfast at the hotel, the group travelled by minibus to the site of the National Museum of Computing and Bletchley Park.
The first part of the day was a tour of the Computer museum. This began with a detailed demonstration of the workings of a replica of an Enigma machine, used to encrypt messages during WW2 by the German military. We were shown how this operates with three wheels, whose settings were changed on a daily basis.
We were then shown a reconstruction of the Bombe, which along with Colossus, was uses to decrypt Enigma-ciphered messages about operations during the war. The Bombe was used to find the daily key (wheel order, wheel settings and plugboard settings) to decipher the thousands of messages located each day. Alan Turing believed that the approach being followed by the codebreakers could be mechanised, and together with Gordon Welchman, produced a version of the Bombe which reduced the number of false positives, resulting in the eventual success of the machine.
We were also given a demonstration of a replica of Colossus, arguably the world’s first electronic computer. The main function of Colossus was to decipher encrypted messages within the German command structure during the war. (Lorenz machines were used by the German Army in WW2 to encrypt messages.) Aside from making huge contributions to the saving of lives and shortening the length of the war, it resulted in great strides being made in computer science generally.
Towards the end of our visit, we were given a fascinating account of the development of computers up to the present day, showing how they developed from large machines from the 1950s onwards, to personal computers, and the laptops and smartphones which are now taken for granted.
After the visit to the Computer museum, our group made the short walk to the main Bletchley Park site, where we had a light lunch at the cafeteria in the hut adjacent to the the mansion.
Bletchley Park
Following the break for lunch, everyone was able to visit the various parts of the BP site at their own pace.
The Mansion
This is where the first Codebreakers were based before the expansion into new huts and blocks.
Huts 3 and 6
Enigma messages sent by German Army and Air Force were decrypted, translated and analysed for intelligence purposes during WW2.
Hut 8
Codebreaking of German Naval messages took place here. It also contains the office of Alan Turing, who was head of Hut 8.
Huts 11 and 11A
Hut 11 housed the Turing-Welchman Bombe machines, and now contains an atmospheric exhibition.
Hut 11A houses the permanent exhibition The Bombe Breakthrough.
Block A
The Intelligence Factory
This was restored and opened to the public for the first time in 2022, and is the largest permanent exhibition space on the site.
Block B
This houses various exhibitions and galleries, including The Life and Works of Alan Turing, the largest display of Enigma machines in the world, and an exhibition about the breaking of the Lorenz cipher.
The Teleprinter Building
This houses an immersive exhibition, D-Day: Interception, Intelligence, Invasion. This is one of the highlights of the site.
The Age of AI
With its historic links to computing and people connected to AI, BP is a very appropriate place for this exhibition. It presents a history of AI, including the legacy of Alan Turing, and how it is contributing to advances in areas such as healthcare and the creative industries. The exhibition has been funded by the UK government.
As well as being a unique place and a site of national importance, Bletchley Park is also extremely well organised. Everyone in the party found the visit very worthwhile- there is almost too much to take in on one visit, which is perhaps why a ticket remains valid for a year.
In the late afternoon, the group travelled back to Woburn together by minibus. In the evening, everyone met for another high quality dinner at a private room at Lussmans restaurant, opposite the hotel.
Sunday 18 May 2025
After breakfast in the hotel, the group were taken by minibus to The Shuttleworth Collection, near Biggleswade, Bedfordshire.
Housed in a series of large hangars, the collection includes a very impressive array of superbly restored and maintained early 20th century aircraft, cars, buses and motorcycles. The collection was begun by Richard Shuttleworth, who was an aviator and racing driver. He lost his life on a night RAF training exercise in 1940, following which the collection was added to and continued by members of his family.
Towards the end of the morning, the minibus took the group to the Willow Tree Distillery. This is a small business located on a farm not far from the Shuttleworth Collection. It was established relatively recently, and we were given a short presentation of the process followed for the production of Willow Tree Gin, a small-batch gin made using a carefully crafted recipe of smoked botanicals and herbs. Members of the group were able to sample the gin (and a non-alchoholic variety for those who had to drive later), and to mix and shake a gin cocktail according to the directions of Mary, our host for the morning and the director of the distillery. There was also a brief presentation about the history of gin in the UK. A number in the party purchased a bottle of gin. All in all, this was a very good way to end the activities for the weekend.
Upon our return to Woburn, those who had booked enjoyed some Italian food at Fratelli’s restaurant, following which the party broke up and prepared for their journeys home.