Bletchley Park trip

[OldLace]

I was hoping to take the kids for an educational weekend break before end of summer hols.
Slightly nervous of unnecessary travel but would be super-careful.

Has anyone been?
Is there enough to fill a day or 2 (two military / tech obsessed teens)

I'd have to travel down on the LNER train coming into KX
How to get there / stay over?

Absolutely brilliant in normal circumstances. You could easily spend a day there with kids, not sure about two days but I'm sure there are other attractions locally. Having said that, a lot of the interesting stuff is indoors in the (relatively) small huts so I'm assuming face coverings will be required.

I went in January and would say there is enough to fill one day, but not sure about two... but we would go back
Went with a 3 yo and an 7yo though, so not teens

I’ve been and loved it
Would definitely go again

I could easily spend two days there. They have massively improved the museum/heritage aspect and visitor facilities over the past few years. The computing museum is a whole separate building on the same site, so if that interests them (it doesn’t me, TBH) that’s a couple more hours too.

Also once you’ve bought a ticket, it’s valid for a year, so if you went back a week earlier next summer, you could get two x two day trips out of it.

Milton Keynes itself gives me the heebie-jeebies but it’s an interesting bit of Town planning to see and there’s plenty of shopping/lunch spots. Bletchley high street is small and much nicer than central MK.

Hi. You might want to check what's open. My dad is part of the team at the National Museum of Computing looking after The Bombe and it is not opening until September. In part because there are very few visitors to the site generally.

I should think the whole site is 1 day max even for really keen visitors. Most it's an afternoon.

May be save the trip until October half term.

As an alternative: Imperial War Museum is opening this weekend or National Army Museum

I would say it’s a days worth rather than 2

There’s other things nearby to do though if you wanted to fill 2 days

Best to have a car to reach things though

Great thanks.
Both mine are autistic and could spend 5 hours discussing an arcane bit of detail on tech so it sounds perfect.
Is it easy to get to from central London?
Need to make a weekend out of it so not sure whether to stay locally or go back into KS for an overnight (as I bet they will want 2 days there)

I found it very interesting and it's easy to get to by train as well as the station is walking distance. I think one day is plenty to see it all, I wouldn't plan on it taking 2 days as there just isn't enough there unless you want to go round twice.

I'd have to travel down on the LNER train coming into KX
How to get there / stay over?

As for travel. Kings Cross is less than a mile from Euston, so walk or cab it, depending on luggage.

The train is quick and easy out from Euston to MK (huge glass building in central MK) and then one stop back out to Bletchley (small quaint local station).

Personally I’d stay in Bletchley if possible, but it’s very much a matter of taste and whether you intend to see MK as well as Bletchley.

@Tablefor4 - ah, thank you, that is worth knowing.
The Computing Museum part would be the main attraction for us so if not open until Sept maybe we put it off till then ?

As its such a long trip for us we will prob only go once so ideally have 2 days available. Car is not an option, public transport only I'm afraid.

I’m not sure that Bletchley Park would have two days worth of stuff, but it’s over 10 years since I’ve been. A good day visit though.
If you get train into Kings Cross then you can walk or v short tube to Euston. Train up the NW main line to Bletchley about 50 mins. Bletchley Park is an easy walk from the station.
Milton Keynes Central is only 10 minutes on the same line beyond Bletchley so you could look at staying in central Milton Keynes - there are quite a few hotels, you might get a good price (obvs check reviews!). Also faster trains from Euston which go on up to Manchester, Liverpool etc. often stop at CMK. So actually quicker than ones to Bletchley.
The centre of MK has a huge good shopping centre, cafe areas, there is a skateboard area right near the station, indoor ski slope + multi screen Odeon (also an Odeon in Bletchley near the football stadium).
Also, if they are tech obsessed you might like to try a robot picnic delivery. In some parts of MK you can get food delivered by mini autonomous vehicles. They find you by using gps/ a pin on a map so you don’t need an address. You need the app the company is called Starship. It sounds like I am making it up but it is a real thing!! They are based at a few Local Co-ops and one of the big Tesco’s. Each has a specific delivery area but I reckon you could find a spot in a nice park within the delivery range of one of them. There is a small fee for the delivery (think £2-£4 ish?).

They are open but you need to pre book an entry time. They have a family fun day and also afternoon tea. I have been but it was quite a while ago and it looks like its changed a lot. I am thinking of going again in winter when they have Santa 1940s style.

Ah, brilliant advice re transport too - thank you!

@lucillevanpelt - Oh FAB!!!

We live in a very rural area in Scotland (so the internet is exciting, but supermarket deliveries / JustEat / Uber type stuff is another planet to us, so YES a robot picnic delivery would be mindblowing for them :)

Central MK might be interesting to see too (appreciate its probably not pretty but it would be very different for them to see so all good)

Just checked and the MK West delivery area actually covers Bletchley Park!

There's also a virtual reality place in central Milton Keynes which might be of interest if anything tech is exciting?

The Museum of computing is in quite a small space so I imagine they will have to really limit visitor numbers to adhere to social distancing. Also, the main thing for my children is being able to play on the old computers, and I don't know whether that would be allowed under current rules. I guess I'm saying, I wouldn't wait for it to open if you're mainly interested in Bletchley Park - it's probably only a 1.5 hours visit even when properly open. The Computer museum in Cambridge is better IMO (but not so easily combined with Bletchley Park visit!).

Robot deliveries sound ace!

Are these just in Milton Keynes?

I think Milton Keynes is the only place in the UK to have the robots. It was chosen as the pilot town because it has a large network of pedestrian walkways (the robots stop dead if they "see" a pedestrian coming, so don't work so well on busy pavements).

Just Milton Keynes in the UK. Also Tallin, Hamburg and various areas in the US. Don’t know how they chose the locations! They started with just one area of MK about two years ago and now expanded to three areas. The delivery vehicles are really cute and very popular!

We went yesterday - booked a time slot but no restriction on how long you stay once you are in. We’d been before but still managed to spend over 4 hours there. Really interesting (new?) exhibit on cyber security and data.
Not as much of the mansion open as normal. It’s a big site so didn’t feel too crowded. Had to queue for a couple of minutes to get into some of the inside areas/huts. Really well-run with hand sanitiser available everywhere on entry and exit to inside areas. Lovely friendly staff.
Quite a lot of interactive (touchscreen) stuff open for use, but not the listening (pick phone up) type exhibits.
Masks only mandatory in the shop and café but lots of people wearing them in all inside areas.

I do think it’s a one-day visit rather than two, but felt very safe and in some ways better than when there are big crowds of people as more space and time to look at things!

We spent all day at Bletchley Park and ran out of time for visiting the Computing Museum.

Could deffo spend a day there in normal circumstances Absolutely loved it when I went . Milton Keynes is a funny place really used to go down there a lot for work but I actually really liked the place , always plenty to do

Bletchley park is a great day out, one day is plenty.

Bletchley itself is an absolute dive. The high street is all pawn shops/betting shops and run down cafes and charity shops. Lots of drunk and drugged up people wandering around too.

Give that a huge swerve and either stay in the centre which has a snow dome, indoor sky diving and IMEX cinema or go back to London, which is very accessible from there.

No offence to anyone who lives in Bletchley but it has changed massively over the past few years and isn't somewhere I would recommend walking around.

This is all gold dust thank you all so much! :)

I spent a full day in Bletchley Park and a good half day at NMOC. I work in IT and have degrees in history and IT, and a particular interest in women in the history of tech, so it suited me well in many ways. It's possible others might not want quite so long, but there is a lot to see.

Milton Keynes Museum is also a really nice day out (not sure if they are open again at the moment though). Its the opposite end of town from Bletchley (near Wolverton) but a short taxi ride from the city centre.

www.miltonkeynesmuseum.org.uk/

As well as a mansion house with a school room, old toy area, brass rubbing, farm equipment, WWII garden and air shelter there is also transport hall and a large communications room where you can dial other phones in the area, using various types of telephones through the ages and use old telephone exchanges etc.

The indoor street of old shops really interesting and you can buy a quarter of cola cubes (other sweets are available) from the post office :-)

Its a really nice day out the cafe has delicious homemade cakes.