- BLETCHLEY PARK Part 8 -

The Huts and Blocks:
Blocks A, B, D, E and F

LINKS to other pages in the Bletchley Park site and to the Colin Day Travelling Days series:

THE WOODEN HUTS were to prove to be merely an early solution to the accommodation problem at Bletchley Park. In late 1941 work was started on brick, steel and concrete blocks in the area immediately to the north and east of the wooden huts.

Blocks A and B were the first to be finished and occupied. Other buildings were completed over the next two years. The heavily reinforced two storey blocks A and B are situated close to the lake (right). Areas in A block were the first to accept the rapidly expanding work load being performed in Huts 4 and 8.

The adjacent B Block (left) housed Major Ralph Tester’s department which did the initial work on the German Lorenz codes and in the design of the ‘Heath Robinson’ or ‘Tunny Rack’ decrypting machine. In 1943 this department, known as the ‘Testery’, moved to the newly constructed two-storey F Block which has since been demolished. It was situated on what is now an open space between D Block and H Block.

The duties of Hut 3 were also increasing to such an extent that space for its activities was taken up in the western wings of Block D (right). It was here that the information was gathered for the coming Normandy invasion in 1944. Huts 4, 6 and 8 also expanded later into other parts of D block.

E Block (left) just to the north of Huts 3 and 6 also took the overflow from the wooden buildings. The two storey G Block (not pictured) was built even later in the war next to D Block to house the overflow from some of the ‘Huts’ and to accommodate a number of Canadians and Americans being trained in the work of the Special Liaison Units situated around the world in various theatres of war.