Hut 1 at Bletchley Park

Hut 1 at Bletchley Park

This single-storey hut stands approximately 100 metres north-east of the Mansion at Bletchley Park. It consists of two distinct parts built at different periods: a wooden north end constructed in 1939, and a brick south end added in 1942.

The 1939 wooden section measures 40 feet by 16 feet. It is built of shiplap wooden boards on a brick foundation with a suspended wooden floor and a gabled felted roof. The exterior is painted wooden boards. The southern annexe, built in brick, is approximately the same size and also has a gabled felted roof with painted brick exterior.

The wooden part of the hut is divided into four bays, each lit by a two-light wooden-framed window. The interior retains three plasterboard walls (one of wartime date, the others later, in the area of the bombe room). A door in the north gable wall provided access to Hut 6, with further doors positioned in the centre of the south gable wall and in the east wall. A fourth door in the west wall does not appear on a 1943 plan and may be a later insertion. Original Bakelite light switches and door handles are retained.

The southern annexe contains lavatories in its north-east corner and what was probably an office in the north-west corner. A centrally placed room in the southern half housed a fire pump trailer, with two small rectangular rooms flanking it.

The wooden north part of the hut is set behind a brick blast wall, now approximately one metre high. Directly east of the blast wall is a rectangular boiler house with chimney, serving Huts 1 and 8, likely constructed during a reordering of heating arrangements in November 1943.

The wooden huts at Bletchley Park, including Hut 1, were erected between August and December 1939, with Hut 1 completed between August and October 1939. It was designed by Captain Faulkner for the Government Code and Cipher School. Hut 1 may initially have served as a radio transmission station, which explains its location within the line of an 18th-century avenue of lime trees, four of which were used as aerial masts.

The hut became home to the first bombe—the electro-magnetic device used to test possible solutions to Enigma machine settings—delivered to the site in March 1940. It thus became the first home of the Bombe Section for twelve months. Subsequently it acted as an extension to the research units in Hut 6, which stood directly to the north. By July 1941, the hut's role was described as "a meeting place of all sections and tends to improve collaboration between different rooms. It is concerned with analysis of all traffic and with the general investigation of the wireless procedure of all groups."

In late 1942, Hut 1 was doubled in size when a separate brick annexe was built to house a fire pump trailer, lavatories, and store room. When Hut 6 moved to Block D in February 1943, Hut 1 was repartitioned for use as the main Transport Office.

In 1939, Bletchley Park became the dispersal home for the Foreign Office's Code and Cipher School and became the focal point of inter-service intelligence activities. Here German codes, notably those encrypted using the Enigma machine, were deciphered, the significance of decrypts assessed, and intelligence passed to appropriate ministries and commands. The hut's modest size and rudimentary construction reflect the urgency with which staff and machinery had to be housed in the opening months of the war. The wooden part has been recently sensitively restored and remains in good condition, retaining wartime character and features.