Clacton on Sea

Geography

It is located between Jaywick and Holland-on-Sea along the coastline and Great Clacton to the north. The relevant local authority is Tendring District Council.

It is at the south-eastern end of the A133. The resort of Frinton-on-Sea is nearby to the north-east.

Amenities

Clacton has a pleasure pier, arcades, a golf course, caravan parks and an airfield. The town and its beaches are still popular with tourists in the summer and there is an annual entertainment programme including the Clacton Carnival, which starts on the second Saturday in August and lasts for a week. Clacton Airshow, an aerial display, takes place on the Thursday and Friday before the August Bank Holiday, with historic and modern aircraft such as the Lancaster, Spitfire, Hurricane, Harrier, Jaguar, Tornado, and helicopters. There are also wing-walkers and the Red Arrows.

Clacton has a shopping area with many of the usual national chains represented, and a Factory Shopping Village in the north of the town.

Clacton has two theatres, the West Cliff Theatre and the Princes Theatre. The West Cliff is one of the last theatres in the country to put on an old-style summer show.

History

Clacton was a site of the lower Palaeolithic Clactonian industry of flint tool manufacture. The "Clacton Spear", a wooden (yew) spear found at Clacton in 1911 and dated at 450,000 years ago, is the oldest such spear to have been found in Britain.

Great Clacton was founded by the Celts around 100 BC. There are some vague traces of Romans using the Clacton area as a seaside resort. The name Clacton dates from around AD 500, when the area was settled by Saxons. The original name, Claccingaton, means "the village of Clacc's people". The Domesday Book records the village as Clachintuna.

Seaside resort

The modern day Clacton-on-Sea was founded by Peter Bruff in 1871 as a seaside resort. Originally the main means of access was by sea; Steamships operated by the Woolwich Steam Packet Company docked from 1871 at Clacton Pier which opened the same year. The pier now offers an amusement arcade and many other forms of entertainment.

People who wanted to come by road had to go through Great Clacton. In the 1920s, London Road was built to cope with the influx of holidaymakers. Later, in the 1970s, the eastern section of the A120 was opened obviating the need for Clacton visitors to go through Colchester. Today Paddle Steamer Waverley operates from Clacton Pier offering pleasure boat excursions.

Clacton has one of only seven Blue flag beaches in the East of England at Martello Bay (two more are locally at Dovercourt Bay & Brightlingsea). Other beaches have also been awarded the Seaside Award for 2013 (formerly Quality Coast Award) at West Beach and again at Martello Bay. Clacton Seafront Gardens which run along the top of the seafront west of Clacton Pier has also been awarded a Green Flag and includes various sections with formal gardens, memorials and places to sit and rest away from the hustle bustle of the beach.

Former Butlins

In 1936, Billy Butlin bought and refurbished the West Clacton Estate, an amusement park to the west of the town. He opened a new amusement park on the site in 1937 and then, a year later on 11 June 1938, opened the second of his holiday camps. This location remained open until 1983 when, due to changing holiday tastes, Butlins decided to close the facility. It was then purchased by former managers of the camp who reopened it as a short-lived theme park, called Atlas Park. The land was then sold and redeveloped with housing.

Sport

Clacton has a cricket club and a football team called F.C. Clacton, whose best F.A. Cup performance was the first round. The football team play at the Rush Green Bowl with the bus shelter being the stand for the passionate supporters. The name was derived after someone said it looked like a bus shelter. The club then took bus timetables and stuck them on it, to resemble a bus shelter.

The Cricket Club has many grounds around Clacton with one in Holland-on-sea and another where Essex County Cricket Club used to play. Clacton also have a rugby club with teams ranging from under 12s to a first and second team. The first and second teams play in Essex League 1 and train on a Tuesday night at 7 which is held at the rugby club in Valley Road.

Industry

Before the Industrial Revolution, Clacton's industry mainly consisted of arable farmland. As the Industrial Revolution spread across the country, farmers in Clacton realised that their equipment was obsolete. A steam-powered mill was built in 1867 to replace the windmill, which was eventually demolished in 1918. Nowadays, the town's main industrial area is in the northeast of the town (Gorse Lane Industrial Estate and Oakwood Business Park) which contain a variety of businesses and industrial units.

St John's Church

St John's Church is the oldest surviving building in Clacton. It has been suggested that smugglers may have used a tunnel from the coast to the Ship Inn to smuggle goods into the country, but this is discounted by some historians.

Clacton Pier

Clacton Pier was the first building of the new resort of Clacton-on-Sea. It officially opened on 27 July 1871 and was 160 yd (150 m) in length and 12 ft (3.7 m) wide. Originally built as a landing point for goods and passengers, as Clacton was becoming an increasingly popular destination for day trippers, in 1893 the pier was lengthened to 390 yd (360 m), and entertainment facilities added. Bought by Ernest Kingsman in 1922, it remained in the ownership of the Kingsman family until 1971. In March 2009 the pier was purchased by the Clacton Pier Company, who installed a 50 ft (15 m) helter-skelter as a new focal point.

Gunfleet Sands Offshore Wind Farm

A 48 turbine wind farm has been constructed about 4.3 miles (7 km) off the Clacton coast.

Climate

Clacton has an oceanic climate (Köppen "Cfb") with fairly low precipitation. This makes for pleasantly warm and relatively dry summers (which also enhances the towns popularity as a sea-side town), but also fairly chilly winter days. For the 1961-1990 observation period, Clacton averaged 103.7 days with at least 1mm of rain annually, and just 24.3 air frosts a year- comparable to south west coastal locations.

Demography

Clacton's population increased substantially during the 20th century from 7,456 at the 1901 census to 25,000 in the 1960s, 45,065 in 1991 and reaching over 53,000 by 2001.

Education

St Osyth's Teacher Training College occupied several buildings in Clacton, mostly along Marine Parade East, until its amalgamation with the North East Essex Technical College in the late 1970s. The town is served by three secondary schools, Clacton Coastal Academy, Clacton County High School and Tendring Enterprise Studio School. The Colchester Institute has a site on Church Road and Thomas Road. Adult Community Learning, run by Essex County Council, is situated in St Osyth Road.

Transport

Clacton-on-Sea is located at the terminus of the A133 road which runs between Clacton and Colchester.

The town is served by Clacton-on-Sea railway station (90 minutes to London Liverpool Street station) via the Sunshine Coast Line whose two branches (the other runs from Walton-on-the-Naze) converge before Thorpe-le-Soken.

The town is served by bus routes operated by First Essex, Hedingham Omnibuses. Termini include Colchester, Manningtree, Harwich and Walton-on-the-Naze. National Express operates coach services to/from London and Liverpool.

Clacton also has Clacton Airport, which has been active since its use by the RAF during the Second World War. In the 1990s, the airfield was featured along with Roly ("The Wing Commander of Clacton") on the BBC television series "Airport".

Conservation

Clacton’s environmental qualities draw on several things: proximity to the sea, its evolution as the resort, its attraction as a retirement area, and its business and trade. The conservation and enhancement of Clacton’s various environmental qualities depends on assessment, evaluation and management.

Both Tendring District Council and Essex County Council can advise on heritage and historic buildings. The district also advises on wildlife conservation, and on obtaining grants for managing countryside for public enjoyment and appreciation. The county has an archaeological service.

Notable people

The following were all born or have lived in Clacton-on-Sea: