Clacton-on-Sea, often simply called Clacton, is a seaside town and resort in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England.

The town's economy continues to rely significantly on entertainment and day-trip facilities; it is strong in the service sector, with a large retired population.

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.

[citation needed] Deposits at Clacton have provided important evidence for the Lower Palaeolithic occupation of Britain by Homo heidelbergensis during the Hoxnian Interglacial, around 424-375,000 years ago, including stone tools of the titular Clactonian industry.

[2][6][7] There is plentiful archaeological evidence of scattered settlement in the area, including Beaker Folk traces at Point Clear to the south and round houses (as cropmarks) near the A133 extension from Weeley to the north.

In 1865 railway engineer and land developer Peter Bruff, the steamboat owner William Jackson, and a group of businessmen bought an area of undeveloped farmland adjoining low gravelly cliffs and a firm sand-and-shingle beach lying to the south-east of Great Clacton village, with the intention of establishing a new resort.

One of the first facilities they built for the new resort was the pier, which opened in 1871, allowing visitors to travel by ship; the railway would not reach Clacton until 1882.

Due to its accessibility from the East End of London and the Essex suburbs, Clacton, like Southend, remained preferentially geared to catering for working-class and lower-middle-class holidaymakers.

Procedures for dealing with enemy captives were not yet well-established and he was treated as a celebrity guest for some days, including by the town council, before eventually being handed over to the military.

A big role in the town during the pre- and post-war period was played by the Kingsman family, which bought and developed the pier and ran a pleasure-steamer service from London.

Throughout the 1960s Clacton beach remained a popular summer excursion for residents of Essex and east London and in August was often crammed to capacity in the area around the Pier.

Increasingly, hotels' and guest-houses' spare capacity came to be used as 'temporary' accommodation by the local authority to house those on welfare, refugees, migrants and asylum seekers.

Since around 1970 several well-known local buildings have been demolished, including the palatial art deco Odeon Cinema (a great loss to both the town and the county); the Warwick Castle Pub; the Waverley Hotel; Barker House, a large home for the learning disabled, and John Groom's Crippleage which housed orphaned handicapped girls from London.

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.

[21] The current Member of Parliament for the Clacton constituency is Nigel Farage, the leader of Reform UK, who won the seat from Conservative Giles Watling in the 2024 general election.

Electricity connections to the national grid rendered the small 2.15 megawatt (MW) internal combustion engine power station redundant.

Now, half-way through this 10-year strategy, the approach has been refreshed to add a greater focus on the populations of Clacton and Jaywick Sands between 2020 and 2024, noting a decline in economic performance of these locations.

The strategy focuses specifically on local participation within communities and addressing long term prosperity and also proposes bold action in Clacton town centre, recognising that its future is unlikely to be led by retail.

[28] A local legend that smugglers used a tunnel from the coast to the Ship Inn (16th century) opposite the church is discounted by historians; the pub is more than 1.5 km from the sea.

A large (and actually unfinished) church of 1912-13 between Tower Road and Wash Lane, St James's is a rare southern building by Temple Moore, an architect chiefly associated with the North of England.

Somewhat grim on the outside (as Pevsner noted in The Buildings of Essex), the interior is surprisingly light and spare, with different orders of arch on either side of the chancel giving an asymmetrical feel.

Ordered for Anglo-Catholic worship, it is large, without pews, and boasts an impressive reredos which finishes in a canopy at the east end.

A typical neo-Georgian 'late Imperial'-style building, it is notable chiefly for the decorative use of moulded 'fasces' on either side of the main entrance - a rare instance of Fascist symbolism in British civic architecture.

A real oddity: in Albany Gardens West, near the seafront to the north of the Pier, this house of the 1400s was moved from the village of Hawstead, Suffolk and reconstructed here in 1911 – though considerably modernised and altered – for a London builder named J H Gill.

"[29] Jaywick was attractive to workers from the Ford plant in Dagenham, who bought strips of cheap agricultural land for holiday homes.

[31] It was built originally as a landing point for goods and passengers, as Clacton was becoming an increasingly popular destination for day trippers.

For the 1961–1990 observation period, Clacton averaged 103.7 days with at least 1mm of rain, and just 24.3 air frosts a year- comparable to south west coastal locations.

Trains are operated by Greater Anglia and generally run hourly to London Liverpool Street via Colchester and Chelmsford; the full journey takes about 90 minutes.

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.