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 attracted many tourists in the 1960s and '70s, but which like other English resorts has been in decline since foreign holidays became more fashionable and affordable making it more popular as 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.
     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 held the second Saturday in August and lasting for a week. Clacton Airshow, an aerial display takes place on the Thursday and Friday before the August Bank Holiday involving historic and modern aircraft such as the Lancaster, Spitfire, 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 was the site of the lower Palaeolithic Clactonian industry of flint tool manufacture[citation needed]. Great Clacton was founded by the Celts in about 100BC. There are some vague traces of Romans using the Clacton area as a seaside resort. The name Clacton dates from about 500 AD when the area was settled by Saxons. The original name, Claccingaton, means .
     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.
     In 1937, Billy Butlin bought and refurbished the town's amusement park and later bought land beside the park. A year later on 11 June 1938, he opened the second of his holiday camps, with space for 400 holidaymakers. It was later enlarged twice with capacity for 6,000 people. The camp was built around a lake and contained the original amusement park, miniature railway, tennis courts, lawns, roller skating rink, outdoor and indoor swimming pools. Entertainment was led by Redcoats, who compered and took part in shows every night in various entertainment venues in the camp. In the 1980s, faced with competition from cheap package holidays and changing tastes, the owners Rank Group sold the holiday camp, which reopened as a short-lived theme park called Atlas Park. The land was then sold and redeveloped with housing.
     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.
     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.
     Clacton Pier was the first building of the new resort of Clacton-on-Sea. It officially opened on 27 July 1871 and was 160 yards in length and 4 yards 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 1180ft (360m), 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 50ft helter-skelter as a new focal point.
     A 48 turbine wind farm 7 km is being constructed off the Clacton and Holland Essex coast in the Northern Thames Estuary began. The first 9 turbines were commissioned and started generating electricity in October 2009.