An easy day trip from London, Bletchley Park reveals there's far more to Britain's wartime code breaking than Alan Turing's battle with the Nazi Enigma machine. There are plenty of cool nerdy places to visit in London, from the British Library to Greenwich, but if you've got a little more time on your hands it's worth the trip up to Bletchley Park to see the how the Brits turned the tide of the war by eavesdropping on Hitler's seemingly uncrackable wartime communications systems. Bletchley Park mansion is roughly an hour's drive north of London, just off the M1. Alternatively you can catch the London Midland train – the mansion is only a short walk from Bletchley Park station – or else the Virgin Train to Milton Keynes Central and take a quick train or bus trip back to Bletchley Park. Purchased by MI6 just before the outbreak of the Second World War, the mansion initially served as home to the Government Code and Cypher School.

Historians discovered a code machine used by Adolf Hitler to swap top secret messages with his generals when they saw it advertised on eBay for 9.50. Volunteers from the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park tracked down the extremely rare Lorenz keyboard after seeing it on the online bidding site. It was being advertised as a telegram machine and the historians found that it had been left in a shed in Southend-on-Sea, Essex, with'rubbish all over it'. Historians discovered a code machine used by Adolf Hitler to swap top secret messages with his generals when they noticed it was being sold on eBay. John Wetter, a volunteer at the museum, said: 'My colleague was scanning eBay and he saw a photograph of what seemed to be the teleprinter.

LONDON – One of the machines used to send coded messages between Adolf Hitler and his generals sold for 10 ( 14) on eBay after being discovered in a shed in England, the buyer said Sunday. Researchers at The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park saw a "telegram machine" for sale on the auction site for 9.50, and believed it may have actually been a Lorenz machine, used by the German Army to send top-secret coded messages. "My colleague was scanning eBay and he saw a photograph of what seemed to be the teleprinter," John Wetter, a volunteer at the museum in Buckinghamshire, northwest of London, told the BBC. To investigate further, Wetter traveled to the town of Southend, in southeast England, where he found the machine, which resembles a typewriter, on the floor of a shed, covered "with rubbish." "We said'Thank you very much, how much was it again?' She said ' 9.50?, so we said'Here's a 10 note -- keep the change," he added.

A historic machine used to swap top secret messages between Hitler and his generals has been found languishing in a shed in Essex. Volunteers from The National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park used eBay to track down the keyboard of the Lorenz machine. It was advertised as a telegram machine and was for sale for 9.50. The museum, in Buckinghamshire, is now asking people to search for the motor, another key piece of the equipment. "My colleague was scanning eBay and he saw a photograph of what seemed to be the teleprinter," said John Wetter, a volunteer at the museum.