Winter Walk : Clacton Seafront

Under a bright blue sky, with a fresh breeze, we had a nice walk along Clacton seafront today. Starting at the pier and working south we passed three Martello towers (there were 29 such towers built to defend us against Napoleon) close together. The first is part of Clacton’s zoo, but the other two are not in use. Just a bit further down the coast, the Martello tower at Jaywick has been restored and is in use as an art centre.

It was good to see some beach huts recently refurbished and repainted – one set in a traditional colour scheme, and the other in a range of bright pastel colours. And there were two large murals, the work of Silent Hobo which were beautiful pieces of art in their own right, but also reflected what Clacton is all about. Follow the link to his website to see the timelapse video of painting of the mural, which is amazing.

There was a plaque marking a spot where Winston Churchill made an emergency landing in a seaplane in 1914, which will need some researching! And the gardens near the pier were in good repair, with a striking new sculptural gazebo and some information panels highlighting the history of the gardens. And the seafront is marked out as one of Tendring’s Healthwalks – visit their site for other walks in Tendring.

The pier was getting some TLC after a busy summer and preparing itself for the winter (it lost a helter skelter in the high winds recently!). (No dogs allowed, so we couldn’t go in!)

And north of the pier there were information boards highlighting the £36m about to be spent on protecting the shore from erosion and making that part of the seafront of Clacton more tourist friendly.

But of course after all that exercise, we spoilt it all by having some chips! But, then again, the seaside isn’t seaside without chips!