Bletchley Park welcomes 2015’s 200,000th Visitor
Bletchley Park has smashed all its previousvisitornumber records by welcoming its 200,000th visitor so far this year.
Throughout last year 196,000 people visited the site where Codebreakers worked duringWorld War Two, amid total secrecy. This year so far visitor numbers are 61 per cent higher than in 2014.
The 200,000th visitor was one of the Collings family from Winchester, Hampshire, who were paying their first ever visit to Bletchley Park. Dad Jason, Mum Katherine and their daughters Josephine, 16, Miranda, 13 and nine-year old Charlotte were given free one-year passes to Bletchley Park along with a guidebook and a teddy bear just like the ones sent to HRH The Duke andDuchess of Cambridgeto congratulate them on the births of Prince George and Princess Charlotte. Jason, who’s read several books on the codebreaking work carried out at this unassuming Buckinghamshire country estate during World War Two, said watching the film,The Imitation Game, had given them the nudge to come for a day out. He said “We want our children to have an awareness of how important this place was to us 70 years ago.”
Kelsey Griffin, Bletchley Park’s Marketing and Communications Director, says “Bletchley Park is now firmly installed in the public consciousness as a fascinating place to learn about a once-secret story of World War Two codebreaking. It is now, thanks to a great deal of hard work by hundreds, if not thousands, of people over a long period of time, a fantastic day out. Visitor income allows the Bletchley Park Trust to fulfil its mission to not only preserve this uniquely historic site but also to tell this amazing story to generations to come.”