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Clacton-on-Sea

[klak-tuhn-on-see, -awn-]

Clacton-on-Sea, town (1991 pop. 39,618), Essex, E central England. It is a seaside resort situated on high cliffs. The Norman Church of St. John was restored there in 1865. Clacton-on-Sea is the area from which Clactonian tools, early flake instruments dating back to the early Interglacial stage, get their name.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright © 2004.
Licensed from Columbia University Press

Clacton-on-Sea

Clacton-on-Sea is the largest town on the Tendring Peninsula, in Essex, England and was founded in 1871. It is a seaside resort that used to attract many tourists in the '60s and '70s, but which like other English resorts has been in decline since foreign holidays became more fashionable and affordable making it more of a retirement hotspot these days. 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.

The town is served by Clacton-on-Sea railway station (90 minutes to London Liverpool Street station).

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 and Clacton Airshow, an aerial display that takes place on the Thursday and Friday before the August Bank Holiday involving historic and modern aircraft such as the Lancaster, Spitfires, Hurricane, helicopters, Harrier, Jaguar, Tornado, wing-walkers and the Red Arrows.

Clacton-on-Sea is served by a bustling shopping area with many of the usual national chains represented and a Factory Shopping Village, in the north of the town.

Clacton-on-Sea 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.

Clacton has an airfield (now privately owned) which once featured on the television series "Airport" when "Jeremy" was given a flying lesson by the then owner of the airfield, "Roly" (aka "The Wing Commander of Clacton"). This episode is repeated often on UK cable channels.

History

Clacton was the site of the lower Palaeolithic Clactonian industry of flint tool manufacture. Great Clacton was founded by the Celts in c.100BC. There are some vague traces of Romans using the Clacton area as a seaside resort. The name Clacton dates from c.500 AD 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.

Year	History
400,000 B.C.	Clactonian tools, early flake instruments dating back to the early Interglacial stage, get their name from the area.
900 B.C.	The 'Catuvellauni' (Celts) set up a village inland, on site of Great Clacton.
500 A.D.	Saxons under their leader Clacc from whom the town gets its name set up residence, Clacc Inga Ton (the Village of Clacc's People).
1000	The "Claccingtune" a tithe introduced by the Church to contribute two seaman towards a ships crew.
1056	In the Domesday Book, it was recorded that 'Clachintuna' was part of a Manor belonging to the Bishops of London.
1100s	Midsummer Fair established on 29th June, ran for 700 years, until abolished in 1872.
1539	Abbot of St.Osyth's surrendered all Lands to his King. Henry VIII handed over the land to Thomas Cromwell
1539-1545	Henry VIII appointed himself Lord of Manors of Great and Little Clacton and Cann Hall after execution of Thomas Cromwell.
1645-1832	Smugglers Headquarters in Great Clacton, many tunnels are said to exist between St John's church and the Ship Inn as well as other places. One runs from the north side of the church towards St. John's square. Others are reputed to run from the Ship's Inn, Geddy Hall (Home of the Webb family), the Queen's head and at Eaglehurst, a house in Valley Road. The smugglers were a rough lot sometimes taking captive the revenue men while they completed their work of loading cargo from the unguarded beach at Clacton and storing it, ready for "Gentleman" to transport it to London. Clacton Beach was also situated between two noxious marshes Little Holland to the east and Jaywick to the west.
7th December 1830	Luddites smashed up farm machinery on nearby farms. 1,000 locals had to put down the riot.
1911	Archaeologist, J. Hazzledine Warren discovered a wooden spear, dating back some 250,000 years. This is the oldest known man-made wooden artifact found on the British Isles'.

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. Ships came and docked at Clacton Pier, which 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.

The resort was once home to the second oldest Butlins site, but in 1983, it was closed and replaced with the Martello Bay housing estate after a very short lived theme park called Atlas Park took over the site. The closure of Butlins is often heralded as a key milestone in the decline of Clacton as a major UK tourist resort.

Industry

Before the Industrial Revolution, Clacton's industry mainly consisted of arable farmland. As the industrial revolution spread across the country, farmers in Clacton realized 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.

Landmarks

St John's Church is the oldest 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.

Demography

Clacton's population increased substantially during the 20th century from 7456 at the 1901 census, to 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 County High School, Colbayns High School, and Bishops Park College.