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General
The name of Bletchley is believed to have originally meant a clearing (leah) belonging to a person named Blæcca.
The town is most famous for Bletchley Park which was responsible for breaking the German armed forces top secret codes during World War II. The code breakers, who included Alan Turing, devised methods which allowed them to successfully read coded enemy messages within a few hours of the message being received. To aid in the decoding new technology was devised including Colossus the world’s first programmable computer. This was used to decode Lorenz ciphers which were used by the German high command to send their most highly-classified and important communications.
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Local House
In Bletchley there is an old Victorian house which is owned and rented by the local council. It comes with all the usual facilities and one extra item, a ghost. At one time the house was occupied by a married couple and their young baby. One night the husband was at work while the wife, Liz, was sitting in the living room watching the television after putting the baby to bed. Next second she saw what appeared to be a shadowy figure move along the living room wall towards the door. At first she gave little thought to the occurrence until it happened on the following night and the one after that. At first she thought it might just be a reflection, so she tried rearranging furniture and moving mirrors and lamps but still the shadow appeared. She had told no one about what was happening even though she was beginning to feel increasingly scared. Then, one evening, her husband came home early and found her in an agitated state. Liz explained why, but at first he did not believe her until he saw the shadow for himself.
At this point they decided to leave the house and move in with friends, but not until they had told the council what was going on. In an attempt to get rid of the ghost a Roman Catholic priest was called in to perform an exorcism, but it was unsuccessful as the shadow appeared again just a few hours later. This proved too much for Liz and her husband so the council rehoused them.
A later exorcism seems to have got rid of the ghost as the new tenant moved in and stayed there undisturbed.
To view a map of the area click on the button below
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RAF Sick Quarters
In the 1950s a building in Bletchley was used as the RAF Sick Quarters. You would expect the building to be full of nurses and so it was, but there was one more nurse than there was supposed to be. Several people distinctly heard the sound of a trolley being wheeled through the ward at night and some patients, who were unable to sleep, saw the trolley and a woman in a green uniform pushing it, before it disappeared through a door at the end of the ward.
The sounds were also heard by an orderly, the Reverend John Storey, who worked there from October 1953 to March 1956. He was in the ward, as a patient, when he heard a noise in the corner by a sink which woke him from a light sleep. He then heard the unmistakable sound of a trolley being wheeled past the foot of his bed but nothing was visible. During his time as an orderly several patients told him of the times they had seen the apparition. It is believed that the building the sick quarters occupied has since been demolished.
To view a map of the area click on the button below
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