The Rebuild of the World War II Colossus Mk 2 computer

The threats and opportunities for its future.

The Colossus Mk 2 Rebuild

The Rebuild, which started in 1994 in the room in H Block where Colossus No. 9 stood in the War, is now very nearly complete and can demonstrate most of the Wartime procedures used to break the German Lorenz cipher. It has been a very long and difficult excersise involving over 6,000 man days of volunteer work.
More information on the Rebuild

Threats

The Bletchley Park Trust(BPT) has announced that it will have sold the piece of land on which H Block stands by January 2005. Thus H Block and the room where the Colossus Rebuild stands will have new owners. This places in jeopardy the future of the rebuilt Colossus. BPT wants Colossus out of H Block so that they can sell with vacant possesion. Colossus weighs 3 1/2 tonnes and occupies 3.15 x 5.15 x 2.5 meters of space. There are over 3,000 interconnecting wires between the front and back racks, all soldered joints. Moving it would be a very complex and difficult operation and it is quite likely that Colossus would never work again. BPT has proposed another place within the Park to which Colossus might be moved. This is a post-war wooden building with wooden floor on brick pillars. It is in a very poor state of repair. An architect/surveyors report on it is awaited to see if the floor could take the weight (3 1/2 tonnes) of Colossus plus 50 visitors.

Opportunites

English Heritage, in their recent "values" report on Bletchley Park state that H Block is one of the most important buildings in the Park. It is the earliest remaining example of a purpose built electronic computer centre, 6 of the 10 wartime Colossi were housed in it. This together with an application to the Deptartment of Culture Media and Sport, for Listing of H Block, creates an opportunity for a new owner to consider allowing H Block to be used as the Milton Keynes Museum of the Digital Age. This would mean that the Colossus Rebuild would not have to be moved. Here is a propoal for a Museum of the Digital Age.

Click here for a .pdf version.

This page was originally created by the late Tony Sale
the original curator of the Bletchley Park Museum
Original Web design by Andrew Hodges, biographer of Alan Turing.