The Cafe in Hut 4

Our onsite cafe is located in Hut 4. Open seven days a week and offering a wide range of good traditional foods The cafe offers hot food (available 12.00pm – 3.30pm summer season) and a selection of cold options including salads, and various sandwiches. Our chefs change our hot food specials daily. If you fancy a little snack why not pop in for a cup of tea and a slice of delicious cake.

Bletchley Park's Cafe is in the codebreaking hut that housed the wartime Naval Intelligence Section. Hut 4 was built in 1939 and the Naval Section moved there from the Library in early 1940.  Decrypted Enigma messages were sent there from Hut 8 to be translated and forwarded to the Naval Intelligence Division at the Admiralty.  In 1942, Naval Section moved to Block A.  Hut 4 was then used for Military Section, Intelligence Exchange and W/T (Wireless Transmission) co-ordination until the end of the war.  It is one of the largest Huts, the only Hut in the Park to have been in continuous use since it was built and has been repeatedly altered internally, since early days.

During the war, a near miss of a German bomb (from the only stick of bombs dropped near Bletchley) fell into Bletchley Park’s grounds.  Fortunately it fell into soft earth and buried itself before exploding.  The blast moved the rear end of Hut 4 two metres off its foundations.  Without informing the staff working inside Hut 4, the maintenance team levered the end of the hut back into place.  After the war, members of the staff on duty that day told Bletchley Park Trust members, that the first they knew about it was a “funny feeling that the whole hut was moving”.  The bomb was thought to have been dropped by a German bomber randomly emptying its load before returning to his air-base.