The Clacton Tower
The clock tower designed for Clacton town centre There's probably a good reason why you might never have heard of Clacton's tower, because it was never actually built. There were however two plans drawn up for the town around the same time, one which seemed quite reasonable, and the other quite eccentric. During the Victorian period, the concept of day and weekend trips to the seaside had taken the country by storm. The new railway lines and their relative affordability for the middle-class, had opened up a whole new industry in tourism all around the country. A quintessentially English obsession with the seaside had been born, and with that came the desire to develop many coastal towns up and down the country to facilitate the growing tourist trade. At that same time, British towns began a rather strange habit of building great clock towers in town centres, particularly near beach resorts. Built examples of these can be seen in towns such as Margate, Herne Bay and Weymo...
