Station X - a collaboration

Rachael, Caroline and Maya in Block D, Bletchley Park. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

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• The Station X exhibition is no longer at Bletchley Park.

• Interviews with the artists and reviews of the exhibition

Station X is a collaboration between an installation artist, a photographer, a sound artist and a film maker that documents Blocks C and D at Bletchley Park prior to their renovation.

Bletchley Park is also known as Station X, ‘home of the code-breakers’. Eleven thousand people worked there during World War Two and were sworn to secrecy about their activities for the following 30 years. It is also the birthplace of modern information technology.

The artists documented some of the derelict Grade II listed buildings in which the code-breakers worked, which have always been inaccessible to the public due to their dangerous state of disrepair. Conditions are harsh in rooms that have been unventilated and occupied only by pigeons and rats for years. Some of the buildings give the impression that the workers have just downed tools and left; a rusty old coat hanger swings on a hook with a name scrawled on it and a file of technical information disintegrates on a window sill. Others provide fascinating insights into what happens when nature is left to its own devices for years.

After decades of decay and a successful fundraising campaign the buildings are now being renovated.

Station X provides a sensory insight into the disused buildings and the remnants of their secret past. It offers a contemporary interpretation of what is arguably one of Britain’s most important 20^th century historical sites. The exhibition documents the visual and aural histories imbued in the buildings before their renovation. 

Caroline Devine is a sound artist who captured the sounds produced by and within the decaying huts. Caroline is interested in voices that may be obscured, silenced or absent such as the employees at Bletchley who were sworn to secrecy for 30 years after the war. 

Rachael Marshall is a photographer who is particularly interested in the reasons why we value and preserve certain buildings. 

Maya Ramsay is an installation artist who makes works using a process to lift pigment, debris and texture from surfaces in the built environment, in particular from buildings that are due to be demolished or restored. Maya specialises in making works that reference war through the associations that abstract marks can create.

The work of Luke Williams involves film, carving, construction and installation practices. Luke produces devices which co-exist with the space in which they are placed. He is interested in the narratives and reinterpretation of science.

Exhibitions
November 7th 2012 – September 2013 – Hut 8 at Bletchley Park
September 6th to October 6th 2012 – Ghost Station at Bletchley Park
May 3rd to June 1st, 2012 – Milton Keynes Gallery Project Space

Article about Maya's work on Jotta

Maya, Rachael and Caroline sitting on stairs inside Block D, Bletchely Park. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

There are now three of us working to document the disused buildings of Bletchley Park. Read an interview on jotta.com with installation artist Maya Ramsay (left) here. More about Caroline Devine's work with sound and music is on her site, Liner Notes. Watch this space for news of the results of our work.

Come and check it out!

'Come and Check it Out' - Graffiti in Block D, Bletchley Park. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

(Wouldn't recommend it without a flashlight though). 

The Rat Room in Block C, Bletchley Park. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

The buildings are so hazardous that I have to be accompanied by someone and this time my 'chaperone' was Maya Ramsay, an artist that I first met at the Florence Trust Open Studios back in February. I saw a piece of her work before I actually met her, and immediately thought of Bletchley Park. We call this part of the northern end of Block C the Rat Room.

More photographs from this visit are on Flickr.

Hut 6 - Home of the Herivel Tip

Exterior view of Hut 3 (left) and Hut 6 (right), Bletchley Park. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Exterior southwest upper corner and gutter of Hut 6. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Interior view of corridor in Hut 6, Bletchley Park. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Interior view of Hut 6, looking west, towards entrance door. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Corner of room in Hut 6. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Detail of threadbare curtain and window frame in Hut 6. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

"We didn't go into any of the other huts; that was something we didn't do. There was no need to. We never discussed our work, even with the people we worked with while outside."

[Extract  from Bletchley Park People by Marion Hill, p.32]

Block C

Bird's egg on the floor in Block C. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Needless to say watching your step in derelict buildings is essential but visiting Block C in June presented a new hazard: birds' eggs. 

The warmer the weather the worse the stench so my mask stayed firmly on and I'm not sure whether the vegetation at the northern end of C has been cut back or dies back during the winter but there was definitely less of it this time. 

Fire hose in Block C. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Everest Base Camp for Hut 6

I'm off to Bletchley Park again this weekend and will be concentrating on Block C and Hut 6. Block C will be the first building to be transformed into a new entrance and introduction to the site. I'll also take more  photographs of Hut 6, which has inspired a trip to Everest Base Camp. No, not me, another BP enthusiast. Read about Asti's fundraising expedition here.

Hut 3 : the red L-shaped building

Entrance to Hut 3. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Kitchen of Hut 3. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Interior of Hut 3. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Kitchen sink in Hut 3. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Taps in kitchen of Hut 3. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Window handle in Hut 3. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Window handle in Hut 3. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

Corridor ceiling in Hut 3. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

The huts of Bletchley Park have a very different atmosphere to the larger blocks. Like most of the disused buildings on the site Hut 3 has had various post-war uses. The interior feels more domestic, due to its scale and the carpets and curtains in some rooms. The L-shaped building has a long central corridor with rooms off to either side. 

Information from Bletchley Park Trust website about Hut 3:


The codebreaking huts worked in pairs. The decoded messages from Hut 6 were passed to Hut 3 for translation, analysis and dispatch. Between Huts 3 and 6 was a connecting chute, added to speed up the passing of information from one hut to the other.

Hut 3 is perhaps the only hut constructed to be totally independent, should the need have arisen. It has its own boilerhouse and central heating system, the only hut to be afforded this comfort. For the most part, the huts were cramped and spartan, cold and draughty.

As the importance of the huts grew, so did their staffing needs, so that by the end of the war Hut 3, for example, was no longer a single wooden 1939 structure, but a whole range of locations and buildings on the Park. The same is true of the other huts.

John Herivel and Hut 6

Detail of entrance to Hut 6. Photograph by Rachael Marshall.

This evening I planned to edit the photographs taken at Bletchley Park on Saturday - more of Block C, a few from the interiors of huts 3 and 6, and lots of details of the exteriors of huts 3 and 6.

And then I learned that John Herivel had passed away just the day before I was there. Herivel worked in Hut 6 and it was here that the 'Herivel tip' was tested day after day until suddenly it worked. It's sad and strange to see this shabby old building and imagine the excitement there must have been when his idea first worked.

Here's a picture of the front door of hut 6.