CRACKING THE CODES: THE IMITATION GAME/BUCKINGHAMSHIRE/SHERBORNE/LONDON

 

Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire started out as a mansion in 1711, later to be pulled down.  The house which was subsequently built on the site was bought by MI6 in 1938 for use by intelligence personnel in the event of war, which turned out to be a wise investment as the centre proved to be a key factor in the country’s victory over Germany in World War Two.  During the War a young Cambridge graduate, Alan Turing, arrived at Bletchley Park and was put in charge of Hut 8, which dealt with German naval cryptanalysis.  While there, he became engaged to Joan Clarke, a fellow cryptanalyst, but they never married as Turing later came out as a homosexual. 

Bletchley Park Mansion. Photo by DeFacto, via Wikimedia Commons.

This story is played out in the film The Imitation Game, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing and Keira Knightley as Joan, and Bletchley Park appears as itself in the interior shots.  For the exteriors Joyce Grove in Nettlebed, Oxfordshire, was used in the filming.   For the town of Bletchley itself, scenes were shot in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, where one of the buildings stood in as Joan’s lodgings.  The town was also used as the scene of a meeting with a possible Soviet spy, and a pillar box was erected opposite 68 Church Street for the scene. 

Church Street, Chesham - geograph.org.uk - 111011. Photo by Cathy Cox, via Wikimedia Commons.

During the film there are flashbacks to Turing’s schooldays, much of which were spent at Sherborne School.  The real-life school in this attractive small Dorset town was used for the school scenes in the film, with its lovely honey-hued stone buildings and arched cloisters much in evidence.

Naturally, any film about the intelligence services will have scenes shot in London.  The evacuation scenes were filmed at King’s Cross Station, while the interior of the MI6 Headquarters was filmed in the Lethaby Building on Southampton Row, seen in the scene where Joan turns up as the only female answering an advertisement for crossword solvers.  In one scene, Turing is seen cycling through a bombed out part of the city; heaps of rubble were dumped in Carey Street, Chancery Lane, for the filming of the scene.  In another throwback to the Blitz, the disused Aldwych Tube Station serves as an underground refuge for the populace. 

Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, has been turned into a museum commemorating its time as a code-breaking centre.  Guided tours are available, and the museum is open 6 days a week.  Joyce Grove, a country house built in the Jacobean style, is owned by the Sue Ryder charity.  Sherborne is a pleasant small town in north west Dorset, with its Abbey, founded in 705, as the focal point of the town.  Chesham is a market town 11 miles south east from Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

Sherborn Abbey.

Map of Bletchley Park and surrounding area.

Map of Sherborne.