Photos: Bletchley needs £2m to save codebreakers' huts

This hut once housed codebreakers who cracked the Enigma cipher used by the Germans in World War Two.

But today hut six, seen here, and hut three at Bletchley Park are rotting and boarded up after decades of neglect.

Margaret Sale, one of the founder members of the Bletchley Trust, said that the trust would need about another £2m to rebuild the huts.

She said: "The huts were left empty for years and had no money put into maintaining them."

Hut six was the main centre for decrypting German air force and army messages protected by the Enigma cipher.

After the codebreakers departed following World War II, Bletchley Park became home to a variety of training schools for teachers, Post Office workers, air traffic control engineers and members of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ).

Plans to demolish buildings on the site and construct a housing estate in 1991 were averted and the Bletchley Park Trust was formed in 1992 to restore and open up the site to the public.

The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley houses a collection of computers, which includes the rebuilt Colossus machine used to break high-level German codes during the war.

To find out more about Bletchley Park visit its website at www.bletchleypark.org.uk.

Photo credit: Nick Heath/silicon.com