The first programmable computer ran in Milton Keynes
- Colossus, 1944
- Bletchley Park
- 5,000 characters a minute
- The National Museum of Computing
How Milton Keynes grew
The short version, in order. Pick a year.
Colossus goes to work
Designed by Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, delivered at the turn of the year and running by February. The world’s first programmable electronic digital computer.
Colossus, Bletchley Park, 1944
Bletchley Park sits inside modern Milton Keynes, and it is where the world’s first programmable electronic digital computer went to work. Colossus was designed by the Post Office engineer Tommy Flowers, delivered at the turn of 1944 and running by February, built to break the Lorenz cipher used by the German high command.
It read five thousand characters a minute. By June 1944 two machines were running, and the intelligence they produced fed directly into the decisions around D-Day.
The work stayed secret for decades, which is why the credit went elsewhere for a generation. A rebuilt Colossus now runs at The National Museum of Computing on the same site, which makes Milton Keynes an odd and wonderful place: a new town wrapped around the birthplace of electronic computing.
What that means if you trade in Milton Keynes
Milton Keynes is a young, fast-growing and unusually well-connected city, full of businesses that arrived recently and have no century-old reputation to trade on. Almost everybody here is competing on what they can demonstrate rather than who they have always been.
That levels the field in your favour. A clear, specific website is worth more here than in a city where the incumbents have fifty years of word of mouth behind them.
What Milton Keynes businesses ask us for
Grid squares, not vague areas
People locate themselves precisely here. Naming the districts you cover reads as local knowledge.
Prove it, do not claim it
In a city of newcomers, evidence beats heritage. Photographs, reviews and prices do the work.
Serve the commuter timetable
A large share of customers are out of the city by eight. Say when you can actually be reached.
How well do you know Milton Keynes?
Five quick questions. Get all five right and you win a 10% off discount code for your website. Every answer is somewhere on this page, so have a read if you get stuck.
Milton Keynes quiz · 1 of 5
What was Colossus?
Common questions
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