Clacton-on-Sea possible invasion beach-head for Napoleon and his Dutch allies. There was a large army and militia camp where Holland-on-Sea now stands. In 1810 5 Martello Towers were built there to guard the beaches between Jaywick and Holland. Clacton was still a small village and a few outlying hamlets when the Essex railway engineer Peter Bruff, the steamboat owner William Jackson, and a group of businessmen built a pier and hotel there in the 1871. In the 1880s the Great Eastern Railway reached it, and it grew into the largest seaside resort between Southend and Yarmouth, with some 10,000 people by
Clacton-on-Sea 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 surviving 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 in length and wide.