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Bletchley Park 02 November 2015

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Bletchley Park 02 November 2015 Understanding Historic Parks and Gardens in Buckinghamshire The Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust Research & Recording Project Bletchley Park 02 November 2015 Bucks Gardens Association of Trust Gardens Trusts 0 Bucks Gardens Trust, Site Dossier: Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes District 02 November 2015 HISTORIC SITE BOUNDARY 1 Bucks Gardens Trust, Site Dossier: Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes District 02 November 2015 2 INTRODUCTION Background to the Project This site dossier has been prepared as part of The Buckinghamshire Gardens Trust (BGT) Research and Recording Project, begun in 2014. This site is one of several hundred designed landscapes county‐wide identified by Bucks County Council (BCC) in 1998 (including Milton Keynes District) as potentially retaining evidence of historic interest, as part of the Historic Parks and Gardens Register Review project carried out for English Heritage (BCC Report No. 508). The list is not conclusive and further parks and gardens may be identified as research continues or further information comes to light. Content BGT has taken the Register Review list as a sound basis from which to select sites for appraisal as part of its Research and Recording Project for designed landscapes in the historic county of Bucks (pre‐1974 boundaries). For each site a dossier is prepared by volunteers trained on behalf of BGT by experts in appraising designed landscapes who have worked extensively for English Heritage on its Register Upgrade Project. Each dossier includes the following for the site: A site boundary mapped on the current Ordnance Survey to indicate the extent of the main part of the surviving designed landscape, also a current aerial photograph. A statement of historic significance based on the four Interests outlined in the National Policy Planning Framework and including an overview. A written description, derived from documentary research and a site visit, based on the format of the English Heritage Register of Parks & Gardens of special historic interest 2nd edn. A map showing principle views and features. The area within the site boundary represents the significant coherent remains of the designed landscape. It does not necessarily include all surviving elements of the historical landscape design, which may be fragmented. It takes no account of current ownership. NOTE: Sites are not open to the public unless advertised elsewhere. Supporters and Acknowledgements The project was supported by The Association of Gardens Trusts and funded by BGT with a significant grant from The Heritage Lottery Fund. BCC generously provided current and historic mapping and access to the Historic Environment Record. The Trust would like to thank the volunteers and owners who have participated in this project and given so much time and effort to complete this challenging and rewarding task. Further information is available from: www.bucksgardenstrust.org.uk 3 Bucks Gardens Trust, Site Dossier: Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes District 24 September 2015 COUNTY: BUCKINGHAMSHIRE BLETCHLEY PARK, DISTRICT: MILTON KEYNES PARISH: BLETCHLEY BLETCHLEY OS REF: SP 86 34 MK HER MMK 6085 (BP gardens); 2554 (Water Hall Gardens) STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE Overview The core of a flamboyant late C19 country house estate, gardens and park, incorporating elements of an early C18 layout for a previous house. Bletchley Park was chosen specifically in part for this character the core of which was incorporated when the site was acquired in 1938 and developed into what became an internationally important wartime intelligence base. The recreational use of the core of the ornamental landscape was important to the Codebreakers in the success of their work. Of the domestic landscape, many of the pleasure ground features survive, but the kitchen and most of the wider park have been lost to wartime and later development. Many of the key features of the core of the wartime base survive. Archaeological interest The identified archaeology is of local significance as far as it is understood to date. The most important archaeological features are those connected with the early C18 structures and layout, particularly Browne Willis’s mansion and wings, features predating this, for example those connected with the deer park, and WWII developments. Some sites of lost WWII structures have potential to further the understanding of these structures, but the potential of each such site is not yet established. Architectural interest A typical late C19/early C20 country house ensemble including mansion, lodge and gateway and stables, which survives largely intact, and the cricket pavilion (all listed grade II). The late C19 walled kitchen garden and associated structures have gone. The wartime structures are of low architectural significance, but are of international significance in other respects: technically, associationally and historically (a number listed grade II). As a group the Leon and WWII buildings are of international significance, as part of a country estate adapted for a wartime worldwide intelligence base. Artistic interest The core of a late Victorian country house garden and park adapted and developed with utilitarian layout and structures as a wartime intelligence base of international importance. Some of the features of the wider country house landscape survive detached from the core, including the flamboyant (now derelict) cricket pavilion, and clumps/copses of trees. The estate, its features and layout established by the early C20 was typical for a wealthy financier: based on sweeps of lawns decorated with ornate horticultural features surrounding the mansion and lake, framed by mature trees and shrubs within wider parkland, sited to make the most of elevated views over characteristic 4 Bucks Gardens Trust, Site Dossier: Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes District 24 September 2015 rolling landscape in a remote corner of north Bucks. Although it reflects high aspirations, Bletchley Park lacked the great architectural and horticultural set piece features of contemporary landscapes such as the Rothschilds’ estates. The country house layout is of the greatest significance in the way it influenced the layout of the WWII intelligence base. Notable surviving features include the Lake, lawns and many fine mature late C19 and early C20 trees. These include the Wellingtonia near the house which is associated with the earliest signals establishment as it housed an early WWII aerial. Historic interest The greatest historic significance is as the setting for the internationally significant WWII code breaking successes by Dilly Knox including breaking Enigma, and innovations by Alan Turing and associates including mechanising the decryption of messages after Enigma was broken, as well as other cipher machines and lower level codes that were broken on a daily basis by a large dedicated team. The landscape is of significance for the close associations with a number of key intelligence figures such as Alan Turing, who here made invaluable contributions to the war effort in WWII in code‐ breaking and to technological innovations that had worldwide influence. These intelligence figures throughout WWII used the grounds daily for recreation and as the tranquil setting to aid their intellectual deliberations and conclusions which had such far‐reaching effects. Several key military and political figures visited the site, adding to its significance, such as Prime Minister Winston Churchill who, when visiting in September 1941 called the code‐breakers “The Geese that lay the golden eggs – and never cackle!”. The understanding of the late C19/early C20 private domestic phase is based on documentary evidence, site survey and surviving site evidence. The understanding of the WWII adaptation phase is based on extensive material of both public and personal documents as well as personal recollections of staff. HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT In the mid‐C16 the medieval deer park at Bletchley was dismantled and the land reverted to agricultural use (Morrison). In 1675 the estate was sold by the 2nd Duke of Buckingham to the celebrated physician Dr Thomas Willis (Morrison). In 1703 Browne Willis (1682‐1760) came of age having inherited his grandfather’s estate. He became a renowned antiquarian, architectural patron and church builder (DNB). In 1707 he married Katharine (d.1724), heiress of the Port Eliot estate, Cornwall, with a dowry of £7,000. He began to build a new house at Bletchley, called Water Hall, a classical box with 2 pavilions linked by wing walls, which was completed by 1711 at a cost of £6,000. The new house stood just to the east of the present late C19 mansion. The 1718 Cole Survey shows its formal layout with axial avenues, orchards, formal gardens and a lake. Whaddon Hall, standing some two miles to the west, was renovated as Willis’s principal residence (Morrison/DNB) and he did not apparently occupy the house which in the later C18 had a succession of occupiers. Walpole, in 1762, admired fine trees but noted the ‘very bad house’ at the end of them. In 1793 the estate 5 Bucks Gardens Trust, Site Dossier: Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes District 24 September 2015 was sold to Thomas Harrison who, by 1806, had pulled down the central block, though the pavilions survived into the mid‐C19 (Sale particulars, 1865 & Morrison). The landscape declined gradually until 1877 when Samuel Lipscombe Seckham acquired the estate and erected a new ‘gothic mansion’ on or close to the site of Willis’s former stables (Morrison). By 1880 (OS) this new house was U‐shaped but incomplete and a new park had been laid out to the east, with the drive from the south along the main north‐south axis, flanked by the C18 double avenue. In 1883 Seckham sold the 561a. estate to Herbert S. Leon (1850‐1926), financier, Liberal MP (1891‐ 95), later Baronet (cr. 1911). Leon engulfed the Gothic mansion in additions and added complex pleasure grounds, an extensive kitchen garden with glasshouse ranges, and wooded belts against the railway to form a showpiece country estate where he entertained his powerful contacts including Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
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