Hanslope Park
Coordinates: 52°06′31″N 00°49′16″W / 52.10861°N 0.82111°W
Hanslope Park is located about half a mile south-east of the village of Hanslope in the Borough of Milton Keynes. Once the manorial estate of the village, it is now owned by the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and is home to Her Majesty's Government Communications Centre ('HMGCC').
History
The manor house was built for Basil Brent in 1692.[1] It was acquired by Edward Watts (son of William Watts who had been a senior official in the East India Company) in Autumn 1764.[2] Having passed down the Watts family, it was the scene of a murder on 21 July 1912 when William Farrow, Edward Hanslope Watts's gamekeeper, shot his master and then committed suicide.[3] Robin Watts owned the house until 1939, when it was bought by Lord Hesketh who handed it over to the War Office when it was requisitioned in 1941.[1]
In the Second World War the Radio Security Service was based at Hanslope Park. The mathematician and cryptologist Alan Turing worked there in the latter part of the War on secure speech "scrambling".[4] Today HMGCC researches, designs, develops and produces communications systems, equipment and related hardware and software.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 "Note from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Foreign and Commonwealth Office Services prior to the Committee visit to Hanslope Park". House of Commons. Retrieved 31 December 2013.
- ↑ "Hanslope Park - An Historical Background". Open University. Retrieved 31 December 2013.
- ↑ "Hanslope Park: Home of Britain’s ‘real-life Q division’". The Register. 5 July 2013. Retrieved 31 December 2013.
- ↑ Hodges, Andrew (1992) [1983], Alan Turing: The Enigma, London: Vintage, p. 270, ISBN 978-0099116417
- ↑ HMGCC, retrieved 25 May 2012