Butlin's Clacton Butlin's Clacton Butlin's Clacton was a holiday camp located on Clacton-on-Sea in England. It opened in 1938 and closed in 1983. Clacton-on-Sea is the largest town on the Tendring Peninsula in Essex and was founded in 1871. It is a seaside resort that attracted many tourists in the summer months between the 1950s and 1970s, but like many other British seaside resorts went into decline as a holiday destination since holidays abroad became more affordable. In 1936 Billy Butlin made moves to create a new holiday camp there, by buying and refurbishing the West Clacton Estate, an amusement park to
Clacton-on-Sea 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. Clacton was a site of the lower Palaeolithic Clactonian industry of flint tool manufacture.