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 across to Calais until the early 1960s. Butlins returned after the war. This, the building of the nearby chalet town of Jaywick, caravaning. and the movement of retired Londoners into the area, largely transformed the town from being an East Anglian resort into an extension of East London. In 1964 the town was in the national news when Moped Mods and motor-bile Rockers clashed on the sea front and arrests were made. Since around 1970 several well-known local buildings have been demolished, including the Art-Deco 1930s Odeon Cinema (an architectural loss to the town), the Warwick Castle pub, the Waverley