Editing Clacton-on-Sea (section)

===Early history===
[[File:Clacton Spear 02.jpg|thumb|right|Clacton Spear, [[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]], London]]
Deposits at Clacton have provided important evidence for the [[Lower Paleolithic|Lower Palaeolithic]] occupation of Britain by ''[[Homo heidelbergensis]]'' during the [[Hoxnian Stage|Hoxnian Interglacial]], around 424-375,000 years ago, including stone tools of the titular [[Clactonian]] [[archaeological industry|industry]].<ref name=Laing50>{{cite book |last1=Laing |first1=Lloyd |last2=Laing |first2=Jennifer |date=1980 |title=The Origins of Britain  |publisher=Book Club Associates |pages=50–51 |isbn=0710004311}}</ref><ref name=":02">{{Citation |last=McNabb |first=John |title=Problems and Pitfalls in Understanding the Clactonian |date=2020 |work=Culture History and Convergent Evolution |series=Vertebrate Paleobiology and Paleoanthropology |pages=29–53 |editor-last=Groucutt |editor-first=Huw S. |url=http://link.springer.com/10.1007/978-3-030-46126-3_3 |access-date=2024-07-28 |place=Cham |publisher=Springer International Publishing |language=en |doi=10.1007/978-3-030-46126-3_3 |isbn=978-3-030-46125-6|url-access=subscription }}</ref> At this time Britain had a temperate deciduous forest environment and climate similar to today.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Ashton |first=Nick |date=July 2016 |title=The human occupation of Britain during the Hoxnian Interglacial |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1040618215011805 |journal=Quaternary International |language=en |volume=409 |pages=41–53 |doi=10.1016/j.quaint.2015.11.055|bibcode=2016QuInt.409...41A |url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Candy |first1=Ian |last2=Schreve |first2=Danielle C. |last3=Sherriff |first3=Jennifer |last4=Tye |first4=Gareth J. |date=January 2014 |title=Marine Isotope Stage 11: Palaeoclimates, palaeoenvironments and its role as an analogue for the current interglacial |url=https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0012825213001554 |journal=Earth-Science Reviews |language=en |volume=128 |pages=18–51 |doi=10.1016/j.earscirev.2013.09.006|bibcode=2014ESRv..128...18C |url-access=subscription }}</ref> The "[[Clacton Spear]]", a wooden ([[Taxus baccata|yew]]) spear found in these deposits around Clacton in 1911 is the world's oldest known wooden spear.<ref name=Laing50 /><ref name="Clacton Spear">{{cite web
 |title=The Clacton Spear 
 |publisher=[[Natural History Museum, London|Natural History Museum]] 
 |url=http://piclib.nhm.ac.uk/results.asp?image=001066 
 |access-date=23 October 2012 
 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141028210420/http://piclib.nhm.ac.uk/results.asp?image=001066 
 |archive-date=28 October 2014 
 |df=dmy 
}}</ref><ref name="Allington">Allington-Jones, L., (2015) ''Archaeological Journal'', 172 (2) 273–296 The Clacton Spear – The Last One Hundred Years</ref>

There is plentiful archaeological evidence of scattered settlement in the area, including [[Beaker culture|Beaker Folk]] traces at Point Clear to the south and round houses (as cropmarks) near the A133 extension from Weeley to the north. There may have been a pre-Roman (i.e. Celtic) settlement at Great Clacton and there were almost certainly scattered farmsteads as the important British Celtic settlement at Colchester was only about {{convert|15|mile}} away.  No traces of substantial Roman settlement have been found at Clacton though there are several Roman villa sites nearby (e.g. Alresford, Wivenhoe, Brightlingsea). After the Anglo-Saxon migration and the foundation of the kingdom of Essex, a village called ''Claccingtun'' ("the village of Clacc's or Clacca's people") was established. No pre-Norman buildings survive today. The [[Domesday Book]] of 1086 records the village as ''Clachintuna''.

Clacton was repeatedly surveyed by the Army in the Napoleonic Wars as a 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 five [[Martello Towers]] were built to guard the beaches between Colne Point to the south and what is now Holland-on-Sea to the north of the town.

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 [[Clacton Pier|the pier]], which opened in 1871, allowing visitors to travel by ship; the railway would not reach Clacton until 1882.<ref>{{cite book |title=Clacton-on-Sea through Time |date=2011 |publisher=Amberley Publishing |isbn=9781445627519 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=c2KIAwAAQBAJ |access-date=3 September 2023}}</ref> The town of Clacton-on-Sea was laid out rather haphazardly over the next few years; though it has a central 'grand' avenue (originally Electric Parade, now Pier Avenue) the street plan incorporates many previously rural lanes and tracks, such as Wash Lane. Plots and streets were sold off piecemeal to developers and speculators. In 1882 the [[Great Eastern Railway]] already serving the well-established resort of [[Walton-on-the-Naze]] along the coast, opened a branch line to [[Clacton-on-Sea railway station]] from a junction on the existing railway at Thorpe-le-Soken.