LGBT: Bletchley Park included on interactive map dedicated to buildings with LGBT histories

By MKWeb | Posted: June 30, 2015

Bletchley Park included on interactive map dedicated to buildings with LGBT histories

The former Crown Inn in Shenley Brook End, where Alan Turing lodged whilst working at Bletchley Park has also been.. Read more: http://www.mkweb.co.uk/LGBT-Bletchley-Park-included-interactive-map/story-26806016-detail/story.html#ixzz3ecTr1yA3 Follow us: @YourMKWeb on Twitter | mymkweb on Facebook

LGBT-Bletchley-Park-included-interactive-map showing over 200 buildings and locations across the country deemed to have ‘untold lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) histories.’
Led by historians at Leeds Beckett University’s Centre for Culture and the Arts and experts from Historic England, the ‘Pride of Place’ project aims to chart the untold LGBT histories of buildings across the country and to encourage the public to help further map

the heritage of the LGBT community.
Alongside Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing broke the Enigma code during the Second World War before he was persecuted for his homosexuality in 1952, the map includes a Manchester temperance hall whose infamous cross-dressing ball was raided by the police in 1880 and a 14th-century bisexual prostitute’s lodgings.
The project covers sites from Roman Britain to the present day, including the homes of prominent members of the LGBT community, pubs, cultural spots and activist sites.
The former Crown Inn in Shenley Brook End, where Alan Turing lodged whilst working at Bletchley Park has also been outlined on the map.
A spokesperson from Bletchley Park said: “Alan Turing was one of the pre-eminent Bletchley Park Codebreakers, a visionary mathematician whose work contributed enormously both to the outcome of World War Two and the computer age.
“In the exhibition The Life and Works of Alan Turing, which features a signed copy of

the 2009 apology from the then Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, The Bletchley Park Trust celebrates Turing’s short but brilliant life and achievements, many of which are more relevant today than they were during his lifetime.”
Professor Alison Oram, lead researcher at Leeds Beckett University, said: “It’s really significant that LGBTQ history is being recognised and promoted by our national heritage body, Historic England, and I am delighted to be developing this project with them. It means that people all over England will have the opportunity to contribute to and learn about the LGBTQ heritage that exists in the streets and buildings all around us.”
You can plot your own LGBTQ heritage places on Historic England’s interactive

map and see what buildings and landscapes others are remembering here.
The news follows this year’s LGBT pride parade in London that took place last Saturday (June 27.)
The theme of this year’s event was Pride Heroes and Alan Turing was one of many LGBT figures celebrated.
Family members

including his great niece Clare Dowling joined tens of thousands on the streets of London to represent the legacy of the revolutionary computer scientist at the parade

Now the “Pride of Place” project is to be widened to the whole country, with the launch of an interactive map of 200 buildings and locations and a call to the public to help further map the heritage of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
The map includes an extraordinary range of sites: a Manchester temperance hall whose infamous cross-dressing ball was raided by the police in 1880, a 14th-century bisexual prostitute’s lodgings, and Bletchley Park, where Alan Turing broke the Enigma code during the Second World War before he was persecuted for his homosexuality.
It also includes the story of French soldier Chevalier d’Eon, who fenced in women’s clothing in 1787 at Carlton House, the London residence of the Prince Regent.

Rosie Sherrington, a social inclusion and diversity adviser at project organisers Historic England, said: “The project is looking at national recognition of LGBT heritage. I think it’s really important, largely because it hasn’t been formally recognised before. There aren’t any buildings listed entirely due to their lesbian and gay relevance.
“I think people will be surprised… there are some really rural sites that have been important for lesbian and gay people in this country. We want to show how important LGBT people have been in influencing the environment around us.”
The Chevalier d’Eon, the androgynous 18th-century spy
Ms Sherrington hopes the project may lead to more buildings being protected. “This comes at a time when buildings and places with LGBT associations are coming under increasing pressure.
“Many are disappearing as LGBT culture becomes more integrated into wider society, while others – often in urban areas – are closing to make way for redevelopment.”
The project is led by historians at Leeds Beckett University’s Centre for Culture and the Arts, who have researched important places and will moderate the suggestions from the public.
Other important LGBT sites include Shibden Hall in Halifax, home of the lesbian diarist Anne Lister, and Millthorpe in Derbyshire, home of Edward Carpenter, the founding father of gay rights in Britain.
Reading Gaol, where Oscar Wilde was imprisoned for “gross indecency” in 1895, is among the sites under the “crime” category, as is the Old Bailey, where James Pratt and John Smith were convicted, and became the last men in Britain to be executed for sodomy in 1835. The project began in London in May and Historic England plans to have the project completed by autumn 2016.
Ronald Wright, a gay magazine illustrator, artist’s model and author who was a prominent member of the gay scene in London from the early 1950s, said the project was a “marvellous idea”.
“So many of our traditions are disappearing. If it wasn’t for something like this jotting it down, the nation would be poorer in years to come.”
Now 87 years old, Mr Wright said: “So much had to be hidden in the old days. I’ve seen some remarkable changes and the biggest change was gay marriage. I wish I had been born 20 years ago so I was young enough to enjoy the things young gay people can enjoy these days.”
He suggested a series of prominent gay pubs, many of which have closed, for the map. These included the Coronation Club, The Standard and The City of Quebec in London’s West End. “It was a tremendously close community,” he said.

Links:

LGBT: Bletchley Park included on interactive map dedicated to buildings with LGBT histories

LGBT: Bletchley Park included on interactive map dedicated to buildings with LGBT histories

Pride of Place: Historians map out untold LGBT histories of locations throughout UK

The Independent