Wilton Park is an executive agency of the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...

. It is a non-profit-making organisation holding discussions on global security and prosperity.

Wilton Park began on 12 January 1946 as part of an initiative inspired by Sir Winston Churchill, who in 1944 called for Britain to help establish a democracy in Germany after the second world war. It takes its name from Wilton Park Estate, near Beaconsfield

Beaconsfield

Beaconsfield is a market town and civil parish operating as a town council within the South Bucks district in Buckinghamshire, England. It lies northwest of Charing Cross in Central London, and south-east of the county town of Aylesbury...

 in Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire

Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....

, which was used as an interrogation centre during the war. Since 1951 it has been based at Wiston House in Sussex, the Wilton Park Estate remaining in other Government use, currently as the Defence School of Languages.

Between January 1946 and June 1948 roughly 4,500 Germans were made to attend re-education classes there.