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Secret services Bletchley Park, the Buckinghamshire base of the WW2 code-breakers who hastened the end of the war, has been revitalised by a major £8 million restoration project. Retaining the original 1940s look and feel was a priority for M&E contractor Re-Gen UK > Original fittings have bee in the refurbished block th
By Andrew Brister
O 20
nce Britain’s best-kept secret, today hundreds of thousands of people visit Bletchley Park each year to see where the heroic efforts of the World War Two code-breakers took place. This summer saw the completion of a long-awaited £8 million first-phase restoration programme, made possible by the Heritage Lottery Fund. This project has seen the transformation of the formerly derelict wartime code-breaking building, Block C, into a vibrant visitor centre. In addition, the iconic code-breaking Huts 3 and 6 have been sympathetically restored and fitted with light-touch interpretation for visitors to experience how it was to work in wartime Bletchley Park. Architect Kennedy O’Callaghan was appointed in 2010 as design team leader to define and develop Bletchley Park Trust’s detailed brief and to scope the project, starting with condition surveys and conservation appraisals of the site and buildings. An important element was to align the conservation with the buildings’ stories so the buildings themselves could be interpreted and treated as museum artefacts. Thorough and painstaking research was undertaken to ensure the most authentic approach, retaining as much of the wartime building fabric as possible, while removing decaying asbestos.
authentic to the original 1940s fittings as possible, while still keeping up to date with modern regulations,” says Tony Pink, M&E director at Re-Gen. “It’s proved quite a task, but has been well worth the effort.” Block C is where the tour around Bletchley Park begins and ends and is the centrepiece of the project, home to a visitor centre, shop and café. “The lighting design solution in Block C looks very effective,” says Pink. “We had new fittings specially made to look like the old GEC lamps of the period.” These may be heritage in style, but are fully dimmable and use LED or fluorescent lamps, depending on the location. Lightinc supplied the lighting units, with controls from Rako. “The requirements for lighting levels and controls were different in each area so we’ve split the space into nine spurs,” explains Pink. “From the main panel in the plant room we’ve got separate energy metering for each spur supplying the various sub mains throughout the building. That way, each area, such as the café, can be billed independently.” It has also provided a single master cut-out switch so that all the loads in the nine different areas can be switched off easily. Re-Gen took away an existing MEM switchbox and got nine cases prefabricated and made to look the same. “We fitted all the internal switchgear, dimmable controls and internal wireways into these units and, with the lid on, it looks really good,” he says. “I think it’s made the project.”
Old and the new Equal attention has been paid to the M&E works undertaken by Billericay-based contractor Re-Gen UK. In an ongoing collaboration with main contractor Fairhurst Ward Abbotts (FWA), Re-Gen has to date carried out around £1.2 million of M&E work across Bletchley Park, working to an outline design by M&E consultant Kingshaw Associates. “The installation is as
‘We had new fittings specially made to look like the old GEC lamps of the period’
Autumn 2014 Connections
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