General Facts

Clacton-on-Sea is the largest town in the Tendring peninsula and district in Essex, eastern England, and was founded as an urban district in 1871. It is a seaside resort that saw a peak of tourists in the summer months between the 1950s and 1970s. The town’s economy continues to rely significantly on entertainment and day-trip facilities and it is strong in the service sector, with a large retired population. The north-west part of the town has two business/industrial parks. In the wider district, agriculture and occupations connected to the Port of Harwich provide further employment.

It lies within the Clacton United Kingdom Parliament constituency. 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.

Clactons History

Clacton was a site of the lower Palaeolithic Clactonian industry of flint tool manufacture. The “Clacton Spear”, a wooden spear found at Clacton in 1911 and dated at 450,000 years ago, is the oldest such spear to have been found in Britain. There is plentiful archaeological evidence of scattered settlement in the area, including Beaker Folk traces at Point Clear to the south and round houses near the A133 extension from Weeley to the north.

There may have been a pre-Roman settlement at Gt. Clacton and there were almost certainly scattered farmsteads as the important British Celtic settlement at Colchester was only about 15 miles away. No traces of substantial Roman settlement have been found at Clacton though there are several Roman villa sites nearby (e.g. Alresford, Wivenhoe, Brightlingsea).