The Clacton Towers

The clock tower
designed for Clacton
town centre.

There are good reason as to why you might not have heard of Clacton's tower, for it was never built. There were however, two plans drawn up around the same time, one of quite reasonable design and the other quite insane.

During the Victorian era, the concept of day and weekend trips to the seaside had become big business. The new railway lines and their relative affordability to the middle-class had opened up a whole new industry in tourism all around the country.

In that same time period, English towns began the rather eccentric habit of building great clock towers in town centres, many of which dominated other bustling seaside towns. Built examples of these can be seen in towns such as Margate, Herne Bay and Weymouth; often known as Jubilee Clocks, they were built largely as a celebration of Queen Victoria's reign in grandiose, Gothic style. Clacton never received such a building, but it didn't stop designers planning some very elaborate designs.

In 1889 a Mr. T. H. Baker designed a Gothic style clock tower for the Clacton Improvement Association. It was to be made of doulting stone and would have stood at a height of eighty feet with a gallery available for public access at around forty feet. It would have had four clock faces, with four chiming bells as well as a public drinking fountain at the base.

Henry Ough's viewing tower
design for Clacton seafront.

Had it have been built it would have stood upon the cross road between Pier Avenue, Station Road and West Avenue (opposite where the McDonalds stands today.) Instead of the clock tower, the site today sports a very pathetic looking water feature.

This design however was nothing compared to the idea London architect Henry Ough had for Clacton's promenade a few years earlier in 1886. He proposed building a huge ornate viewing tower that would overlook the sea and the surrounding Essex countryside. Standing at 184 feet (just under two thirds the height of Big Ben,) the tower would have contained multiple viewing galleries on different levels each with their own covered balconies, accessible to the public by lifts and a stair case. Each level would have served a different function including a smoking, reading and refreshment room.

Unfortunately a global recession around this time prevented the project from ever seeing the light of day. At the time though idea was being considered as it would have been great draw for visitors from further afield. Lack of immediate funding however doomed the project, and it was probably realised later that the idea was perhaps just a little too extreme for a small coastal town to entertain.