The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Clacton, Essex*

Clacton, Essex Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• The new McCarthy and Stone retirement flats on the front.
• definitely the bogs on magdalen green - sure clears the head if you go in there
• 'A Cut Above' hair salon in pallister road, when Seagull was harpooned to the lightning conducter.
• The Martello Towers.The only thing in Clacton worth preserving.
• The Pubs
• the signpost that says you are now leaving clacton
• The local mental Hospital
• Got to be the pier even thought it's run down and tacky, but there are funny memories.
• None the whole place is crap and should be bulldozed into the sea
• The Town & Country building, It looks impressive purley cos it's the only thing in clacton taller than a lamppost.
• THE JOB CENTRE CARNAVON ROAD
• The pier.......you just never know what day it will finally collapse after years of all night raves and much too heavy rollercoasters.
• The Martello Towers along Jaywick.(Now bricked up)
• Tom Peppers and Fibbers building. A big part of my "late" teens ie over 18 years ahhhhh the memories!!!!
• wimpey what a place to work, but he had a lovely daughter and a weird son who had a girlfriend with a beard
• Magdalen green toilets - especially after a good curry!
• "Magic City" is great, but if you're over the height of Jezz Rabbits hand, you can't get in. i grew taller than his hand in August 1987 and haven't been inside since. I wonder what it's like. . .
• The covered market. It is really charming and not at all full of dodgy wierdos who can't get a proper job. "Melodies" record and herb store. For the same reasons.
• somewhere down skelmersdale road where i lost it!!!!!
• The station hotel opposite railway station has been flattened and is now retirement flats.
• The Station Inn opposite the railway station (funnily enough!). I ain't been back to Clacton for a while, so it's probably gone now. (See Clubs for more info...)
• Clacton's Victoria Street Railway station is modern anodyne structure of such daring tenacity that the mind boggles. The revolutionary structure made entirely from Steel Glass and crushed mice corpses is truly triffic.
• Forge Cottage, Valley Road
• The John Lennon museum which features a calf eaten and then regurgetated by Lennon in 1965 before a concert

Demolish It Now Building

• All the houses in Warwick Road with the people who live there in them at the time.
• The whole place needs demolishing
• The entire town. The entire town.
• Clacton County High School - spent to much time there it sucked arrghh schools
• The Town hall they dont do anything so why not flatten it and bulid a indoor skate park
• CLACTON
• Those weird places on the sea front where all the tramps sleep, shelters of some kind that are built for people to sit in (old people) but no one ever does because they are all piss stained and have tramps beds and stuff in.
• The whole god damnd town should be flattend by some sort of giant pig. having lived in the town for 12 years i have concluded it isn't worth the soil its built on
• The whole place
• Tom peppers!
• How about the whole of Jaywick, and the residents!
• THE JOB CENTRE CARNAVON ROAD THE TASTY HOUSE CHINESE
• County High
• TOM PEPPERS. Ugly bar staff (and I mean reeealllllly ugly. Think upside down faces, external lungs and multiple throats), DJs devoid of any taste and tadpoles in the beer make it the perfect target for an outbreak of pox.
• The Royal Hotel. Now full of asylem seekers. If someone doesn't knock it down, it will fall down!
• Rumors nightclub..........what a waste of a perfectly good bingo hall.
• The half mile stretch of grey concrete second world war anti-tank blocks .
• Demolish the whole bloody town, make the High Street really a HIgh street ie having at least on "high" street shop in it
• all the ones in jaywick
• MacDongles
• The Hospital and The Fire Station. I would also like to see the Police Station bought up by Magic City. What an adventure that would be.
• too many to mention
• Town & Country Building (now Essex Social Services)
• colbayns high school
• The John Lennon museum which contains the remains of a foot stall he and Yoko used to beat up a brown bear in 1979

The Best Things

• All the girls in clacton have massive...ahem...how can I put this....entry caverns. you can fit a few in at a time if you can hack your way through the undergrowth!
• The Beaches.
• what ever happend to the ice hockey team a friend called mark from chapman road used to play,they had a ice rink on the pier
• This place is truly awful
• The Arsonists theat appear periodically
• The little gardens on the front.
• Pass Pass Pass.
• the pubs the beach the fit women who like to 'sleep' alot
• Granny dogeing
• no best things the place is Bloody awful!
• The best things are the beaches. And the fact is doesn't rain here very much. That's it.
• I LOVED YOUR PEIR AND ALL THE RIDES AND THE ICE RINK
• Turd Skating
• The overall feeling. The fresh air. The beach. The way we get more heat than other places in England cause were in some weird geometrical thing if that is an actual word. The old people (watching the funny things they do. The main town is small so you don't have to walk far. the tourists. They keep the place going. Holland-on-sea, when you want to get away from the tourists and dodgyness of Clacton. The way the snow in winter gets on the path along the top promenade on top of the cliff and it gets really deep there. The wars between County High (YAY!!) and Colbains (BOO!) The history I spose. The places you find here that you have never noticed before. Really this happens all the time.
• how the understanding of the words 'Cul-De-Sac' is considered 'posh' by most members of the local population
• None the whole place is crap and should be bulldozed into the sea
• Clacton County High School - a great place to start your education. Everything is in place to go on to higher ed. and the teaching is geat. (please not this doesn't include the students - who are rude, stupid and inconsiderate- but then again if they get F's at GCSE they'll get a job in McDonald's. & dont worry they wont read this - their parents are probably scum aswell, with a pregnant teenage daughter and a social security cheque. They wouldnt know where the On swicth on a computer was, not that they could spell it. (spell 'on', not 'computer')! Clacton would be good if they put a baracade around the good part and sent the rest back to whatever london suburb they came from.
• THE JOB CENTRE CARNAVON ROAD
• Probably the Pier. Good fun in the sun.
• My family have been coming to Clacton since 1997 and from the first visit we found,friendly polite and helpful people. I am not just referring to the older people, I spoke to a teenage boy near the pier who was more than helpful when i told him we feel so welcome there that we are looking for property. sdaly we are still looking unfortunately when people learn where we are currently residing the property suddenly goes to the highest bidder! Dont call yourselves down so much, you live in an area that many people cant even begin to imagine exists. I know this will be hard for many of you to see but honestly we cant wait untill the day we finally arrive in your town
• Clued up people, music scene is kicking.
• I now work in London at a pub where the Richardson's and gang all hang out (NB: the Krays ran one side of London, and the Richardson's the other). These are funny, but nasty guys who took a real shine to me for some reason (one of them told me that if anyone ever pissed me off, one phone call to them would be all you'd need to take care of it). Seems fair. I mentioned Clacton to them once and they said they LOVE it. Their idea of a great day out is going 'daaaan' Clacton getting some cheap drugs, having a serious bottle fight then getting a shag with a filthy slapper called Tracy. pretty cheap day out- they have a point.
• The blue sky,the relatively unhassled atmosphere.
• beach ,the beer ,holiday makers
• The Sea
• The best thing is the centre of Earths magnetism is here. this means the Daleks cannot attack as it is their only weakness. ALL ROBOMEN ATTACK THE DALEKS!
• The sea air and the girls. They are all astonishingly lovely. Even the ones who are 14 and have five parents, four boy-friends, three heads, two kids and a tatoo.
• the people
• Due to an unrepealed 1649 law, Clacton residents are quite entitled to throw rolled up bread dough at the King to show their dissatisfaction at the state of crop rotation in the area.
• Sea, sand and sun
• The best thing about Clacton is the great people who live there. Chris Harding, Edward Puddick, Richard Appleby, Marc Wiggam and David Cooper all are groovy fab guys with great faces. I must also defend the reputations of the girls from Clacton. You may not have been since the mid 1970`s, but I can assure you there are many attractive young ladies in the Clacton area. I wouldlist them all but my pride makes me stop. Please apologise for the mistaken reporting of the lack of pretty girls in clacton as it is completely wrong. they are all nice. All of them. Every single one, especially. . . . . .Aaaah, no you don`t
• The pier is good now that you don`t have to pay. The rides are okay. The big wheel is fun and the beach is good in the summer.
• The best thing about Clacton is the fact that everyone knows everyone. A real sort of community. Lots of good parties especially on the beach in summer. Loads of out-door swimming pools. A couple of fields with a regular crop of magic mushrooms. But best of all are the boy racers who burn around the town's very tight oneway circuit. The stereos these boys have are too much.

The Worst Things

• Clacton is the only place in England where the best pub around, is a "wetherspoons"! I'll leave it at that.
• der is nuthin 2 do!!!!!!!!!
• People who aren't called Gary or Sharon. You guys and gals don't appreciate how much simpler life is if we only have two names to remember. Be even if easier if everyone was just called 'Az! (Gaz, Shaz)
• All the girls in clacton have massive...ahem...how can I put this....entry caverns. you can fit a few in at a time if you can hack your way through the undergrowth!
• The people especially all those under the age of twenty who are without exception thick, lazy and anti-social.
• i can remember a man on the pier,and he did some sort of tricks like walk on fire and he put a sward through his lips ,i think he had holes put in his face so he could do it yuk it made me feel sick,and i didnt like the big wheel as my boyfriend work on it and i went on it for free and i was sick
• everything in this place is horrible, avoid at all costs
• Everything - it’s a hideous resort and you wouldn’t pay me to go back. It’s basically full of Essex boys and London low-lifes (same thing) who all seem like clones. Quite extraordinarily and unimaginably awful.
• Clacton
• the bloody kids there everywhere after about 8.30 hanging around mcdonalds
• the fit women who like to 'sleep' alot who aren't really fit once sober
• granys and thier little wolly trolly things there a dager to everyone
• Everything here is awful
• I moved here to Clacton a year ago with my family and the sooner I move out of here the better. If you are over 60 or prefer to be unemployed for the rest of your life then this is the place for you! Its a very poor area (just look at the masses of charity shops). The only well off people that I have met here are the retired people who come here to live. I'm in my thirties and feel so out of place here. Its a shame as Clacton itself is a nice place with the beaches and gardens ect. Summer is a lovely place to come to. However take my advice don't start up a business here as people here have no money to spend. Sorry if I have offended anyone, but I wish someone told me all this a year ago before I moved here. Theres a lot of nice people here too I'd say, but unemployment is high as there is no work here and in the winter it is dead here.
• everywhere
• The bungalows in lake walk,are they all full of social misfits or are they all interbred???????
• I CAME TO STAY WITH A OLD BOYFRIEND ONCE MARK SAWARD ,(I LIVE IN LOWESTOFT), AND HE WORKED ON THE PEIR AND TOOK ME THERE ONE DAY AND THERE WAS A MAN THERE AND HE WAS PUTTING A STEEL ROD THROUGH HIS FACE AND IT MADE ME FEEL SICK,THEN HE WALKED ON HOT COAL ,BET THAT HURT
• Turd Skating
• The dodgy nutters. The old people getting in the way and if you move out the ay for them they don't say thank you, and they say we have no respect for them. The overall look of the place. Not enough clothes shops. Not enough things to do. The way everything is so great in summer and then in winter it's like a holiday village for tourists but no tourists come anymore so it's to depressing. Seagulls crapping on you. All the girls who walk around in mini skirts with un natural looking blonde hair who sound really common and shout all the time. The tourists. They get in the way and take over. The schools are the only normal places and I wonder if anyone has noticed that none of the teachers actually live in Clacton or any where near it really.
• the town centre on a friday night with all the Garys pounding round in their Novas, glaring at eevryone. fools
• everything the whole place is crap and should be bulldozed into the sea
• Hey, as a "nearly old person" and as a Clacton born and bred girl, I object to the remark that all Clacton girls are ugly. My daugher was born and brought up here, and she is stunning! Of course, I might be a wee bit biased .....
• Most of the Residents.
• It has a person called Jackie here who is the bike of the area. She has an unhealthy friendship with a fat retard called William.
• The Homeless saddoes are now becoming a real threat to honest job seekers in the fraud stakes. we thought we had the market cornered until The Big Issue sellers came! Bastards!
• Lets think. Tom Peppers. Imagine Hitler’s beer hall putsch (look it up) happening in Essex and you're half way there. Clacton is a real thalidomide beauty contest.
• For fear of ending in blood soaked finger stumps, I really must limit myself to naming just the amazingly shit (or uber-shite) aspects of Clacton. Again, because I am having to type this myself (and dictating it would result in burnt vocal chords) I have decided to name what is absolutely positively and infinitely shit about Clacton. In a word - Clacton. Anything that springs to mind pops up in your head vision, memories of events held within the town walls. Anything of this nature is shit and shit extraordinary. Thank You. You are scum
• Too many to list. One worth mentionng is a pub called 'The Rocking Horse'. I think its a student bar, it is so dark and dingy. very intimidating.
• I lived and worked in "Clapped out on Sea" as a former colleague referred to it, for many years. I also heard that the town is the teenage pregnancy black spot of Europe. Reports that the rate has since fallen upon my departure have been grossly overblown...no pun intended. I haven't been back for years...nuff said.
• The awful Huntlets nude beach at the very far end of a mile long dirt track(semi passable for bikes) of the ginormous Jaywick Mobile Home site(s)Think Florida. THe "beach"for nudists is itself shingle and most of the 99.9% nudists are male,sitting in the car park on camp chairs for 2 hours at lunch. No facilities whatsoever for up to 3 miles.
• How every one kinder knows each other. "Oh yeah my friends boyfriend work mates brother knows you"!!!!!! HOw does this happen???
• every bloke thinks and trys to talk like a cockney and they all think there well hard
• The million Gary's and Sharron's who live in the local area - go away!!!
• Miserable , ignorant , stupid Tossers Frequent every orofice
• The worst thing is that the Daleks have built a large mining area here, using slave labour to try to reach the earths core. This situation depresses me, but I took heart in seeing a nice blue police box earlier, which, I don't know why, seemed to cheer me up
• Having to leave to seek your fortune.
• how many fingers and toes can you get
• Everybody knows everybody else! You just can't sleep with someone without their other half finding out about it!
• The worst thing is that all the cats have super heated arse holes. Many of them start fires if they sit on dry woodland, and often a child will be burnt whilst sticking it's finger were they should go. Daffodils are free to look at, but Lord Mayor of Clacton, Peter Longford has often said he wants to charge people for eating in the town centre and would happily see tennis banned from the entire country. Waht a git.
• Unfortunately another unrepealed law means that residents of Clacton by law, have to have their faces daubed in "Donkey fluids" whenever the residents of Thorpe-le-bangem (former home of the local duke) wish it.
• The worst thing is the Essex boys who are complete clones of one another and wankers to boot. They all smell and are ugly with tiny teeny dicks. I hate them all and they must die
• Clacton Dart Centre and `Mice N Easy`, the pet shop
• The worst thing about Clacton is The County High school: it is really rubbish. The best school is Colbayns: the uniform is better and the pupils are much nicer.
• The worst thing about Clacton... and anyone who has lived there will back me up... is that all the girls are really ugly. I mean, in any town in England if six girls walk into a pub at least one would look slightly nice. Not in Clacton. Oh no!!! Ugly mate. Seriously, this is true. My Dad even apologised to me once for bringing me to a place where all the girls are so rank. Oh yeah! It's full of old people.

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Last updated: 2008-07-04