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Bletchley Park's Bitter Dispute Over Its Future

Posted by timothy on from the all-things-to-all-people dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Tensions are high at Bletchley Park between the new management who want a 21st century installment and the volunteers who want to show the whole story (and get dismissed for doing so). This report [Note: video, with sound] is from the BBC: 'The groundbreaking intelligence work carried out at Bletchley Park during the second world war was credited with bringing forward the end of the conflict. In 2011 the site was awarded a £4.6m grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF). But Bletchley is currently in the throes of a bitter dispute, between owners who want to create a brand new visitors centre, and volunteers who have been working on the site for years.'"

3 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. "Modernizing" museums is a blight on the world by jcrb · · Score: 5, Insightful

    One of my most favorite museums in the world used to be the Science Museum in London, then I visited it and discovered the steam engine in the entrance doesn't run, the ship model gallery has been sent to storage never to be seen again to be replaced with a gift shop, I couldn't find the working Babbage engine section, in fact basically every display I wanted to see was gone and replaced by junk.

    These so called "modernized" displays are nothing better than what you could read online, I want to go to a museum to see *actual* history, not to see a cartoon representation of a simplified version of history that assumes I am a moron.

    I think the curators of science/technology museums need to view themselves in the same way as curators of art museums do, their purpose is to display the "art" not to tell me about the art with pretty cartoons after they ship the art to the storage warehouse.

    --
    -jon
    1. Re:"Modernizing" museums is a blight on the world by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Similar experience with the Birmingham Science Museum, in my youth it had seemingly acres of operational industrial machinery, mercury arc rectifiers, van-de-graff generators, an operational beam engine, a steam train and Fresnel lighthouse lens (presumably not native to Brum) and countless other such well oiled triumphs of human ingenuity,

      They closed it in '97 and replaced it some years later with the shockingly poor substitute that is Think Tank / Millennium point. Basically they scrapped 3/4th of the exhibits, replaced them with much easier and cheaper to curate "social history" (this is still allegedly a science museum) and started charging a small fortune to get in. It really upsets me that the closest my own children will ever get to the sights, sounds and delicious machine oil smells of our true industrial history is the occasional steam rally.

    2. Re:"Modernizing" museums is a blight on the world by xaxa · · Score: 5, Informative

      Last time I visited the Science Museum there were steam engines running. That was less than a year ago, but I don't think they run every day -- perhaps only at weekends.

      The shipping gallery is available online: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.u... -- I don't know what is now in that location (or if it's ready yet). It's certainly not a gift shop, as that's on a different floor.

      The Babbage difference engine model is in the Computing section, on the 2nd floor: http://www.sciencemuseum.org.u...

      Perhaps you should have asked for a map?

      (The museum is free, funded from tax and donations. The Deparment for Culture, Media and Sport is facing big cuts from the current government, and all the tax-funded museums are being told to cut costs as much as they can, and generate as much income as they can. I don't like this, but there's not much I can do about it.)