Jaywick Sands

Intended in the 1930s for holidaying Londoners, and with a reputation for stubbornly refusing to conform, the Jaywick Sands Estate in Essex has survived plans to demolish it.

The derelict former Mermaid Inn at Jaywick Sands seen before it was damaged by fire and finally demolished.

Jew Wick was one of the six Saint Osyth Marsh Wicks (with Cocketts Wick, Sea Wick, Wigborough Wick, Lee Wick and Well Wick), near Clacton-on-Sea in the Tendring District of North Essex. In January 1928 surveyor and entrepreneur Frank ‘Foff ’ Stedman came to view his potential purchase of Jew Wick in the least favourable conditions, to see if the land would still look promising for his plans. [1]

By October that year he had purchased 320 acres of land that comprised Jaywick Farm. [2] A full front-page advertisement in the Clacton Times in 1929 promised a range of housing options at Jaywick, on an estate served with a number of amenities and leisure facilities. ‘Bathing houses’ were also offered for sale. In the following June permission was given for six houses and bungalows at the southern end of the new road from Clacton. The programme was intended to progress with the blessing of the Clacton Urban District Council (CUDC).

The initial vision was modified because of circumstances that Stedman did not foresee. The first obstacle was CUDC’s reluctance to grant further planning consent. In this, the first of many tussles with the local authority, the council was concerned that plans submitted did not show any drainage system. Stedman offered to construct this, but the CUDC’s objection was that a conventional drainage system would be unsuitable as the area was at or below sea level. This is where the blueprint for the true future of Jaywick is established. The initial setback with the CUDC and its ambivalent approach would result in a different building programme, and a change of emphasis at the new resort.

Only part of Jaywick lay within the jurisdiction of the CUDC. The area to the west was within the parish of Saint Osyth, and under the jurisdiction of the parish council and Tendring Urban District Council (TUDC). This area, where Stedman’s ‘Mile Long Sporting Lake’ was to have been situated, became the Brooklands and Grasslands estates. Permission was given by the TUDC for around 800 plots to be developed as holiday accommodation and bathing huts. [3]

These were advertised and marketed as a priority, as the CUDC was not prepared to allow further residential developments. Planning permission for holiday accommodation was given on the condition that the structures built there would not be used for overnight accommodation. At this stage the form and layout of the Jaywick Sands Estate began to take shape.

Those buying a retreat by the sea were seemingly untroubled by the restrictions placed on their plots if, indeed, they were aware of them. As plans were submitted and passed for structures containing several rooms, it seemed to Stedman that the intentions for use were clear enough. He continued to push for having the estate connected to the main sewer, yet only mains water, gas and electricity connections were achieved by 1931. Stedman’s frustration was ultimately vented in the largely ineffective full-page advertisement in the Clacton Times and East Essex Gazette in 1932. The unemployed of Clacton were challenged to lobby local councillors in order not to lose out on work opportunities created by Stedman’s scheme.

Some residents on the estate were politically active working-class east Londoners, and people who valued their newfound opportunities for freedom and a pastoral lifestyle. George Lansbury, Labour MP for Poplar and former leader of the Labour Party in the House of Commons, figured among them. A key figure in the promotion of the Land and Labour League, and of Keir Hardie’s view that the state should provide ‘home colonies on the idle lands’, Lansbury was vociferous in his support for working-class aspirations for a stake in rural and coastal England. Although Jaywick was by design a holiday colony, it was accessible to east-end working families. While he mentions little of his association with Jaywick in his memoirs, Lansbury’s views are clear: ‘I just long to see a start made on this job of reclaiming, recreating rural England.’

His nephew Ernest Lansbury worked with the residents, who were by now ratepayers. As contributors to the local authority, these ratepayers knew that they could achieve more if they organised themselves. It would have seemed logical that if the local authority charged rates, it must recognise the residential status of the plots. With politically experienced and well-connected members, the Jaywick Sands Freeholders Association was formed in 1931. Ernest Lansbury became its secretary.

Faced with a divided and ambivalent council, the way ahead for Jaywick was given a positive impetus by the partnership that developed between Stedman and the Jaywick Sands Freeholders Association. St Osyth parish councillors also joined the Jaywick ‘Hut Owners’ to protest at county proposals to take an area including the western section of Jaywick Sands from St Osyth and hand it to Clacton. Such protests were largely motivated by an anticipated rise in rates. As the freeholders association established itself as a vociferous lobbying organisation, Stedman’s commitment was further demonstrated in 1934 at a meeting to discuss sea defences and water supply. Stedman offered to ‘make a present to the association of a £1,000 a year income from the new section.’

With a well-organised association campaigning for Jaywick, the remaining pre-war years were less troublesome for the estate than they might have been. The main concern, flooding, was realised in January 1936, when areas of the estate became inaccessible. High tides caused problems again in the following December. The self-help measures that residents took to ease the situation, including cutting through the sea defences to allow water to drain away, were challenged in court by the Essex Rivers Catchment Board, which had previously ignored letters of protest about flooding.

Despite flooding, poor services and sanitation, and the resentment towards the CUDC because of little in return for rates, pre-war Jaywick was an otherwise happy place, with a real sense of holiday fun. Reflecting growing popularity and visitor numbers, the local press in the 1930s would often report on carnivals, sports days, gala evenings and all manner of entertainments there, often sponsored by the Stedman family and the freeholders association. By the outbreak of war in 1939 the Jaywick Sands Estate was firmly established within the coastal landscape of the Tendring District. An effective association of freeholders who would campaign and fund-raise rigorously, the determination of Stedman to spend his time and energy developing Jaywick, and a commitment that as many positive links as possible were made with local councillors, all helped in this pre-war consolidation. But Jaywick was a success simply because it was a fun, carefree place to be.

Billy Butlin had seen the potential of Clacton as a location for his next holiday camp, and had won permission from the CUDC to build. Although the same concerns raised by the CUDC over Jaywick also applied to Butlins, permission was granted and development went ahead unhindered.

During the war, Jaywick became a restricted area. In 1943 it was the unwitting subject of a survey of the east coast, which informed the post-war Ministry of Town and Country Planning’s view of such places. There was objection to the haphazard and unregulated nature of the development but, unlike similar developments in other areas, a clear acknowledgement of the benefit to urban holidaymakers of such places. Jaywick demonstrated the demand for (and social benefit of) such holiday accommodation in Tendring, close to the capital. But, unlike the new holiday camps such as those planned by Billy Butlin, which under the new planning laws would be controlled and regulated, it was the lack of control among the existing plotlands that caused problems.

Post-war Jaywick is characterised by several factors: continued problems with flooding; a gradual transition from holiday to attempted residential use; and a continuous struggle with the local authority, culminating in a failed council attempt to compulsorily purchase the Brooklands and Grasslands areas. The freeholders continued to lobby effectively, but after a brief post-war resurgence in holidaymaking, the estate began its gradual decline. New caravan sites were appearing close by, offering affordable holiday accommodation to the families that Jaywick and the pre-war plotlands had hitherto catered for.

The problems of flooding culminated in the 1953 disaster, which caused devastation along the east coast. Lives were lost and the invading sea, driven by high winds, caused much structural damage. Unlike other plotland areas, Jaywick was not subsequently totally rebuilt and suburbanised. The ratepayers continually lobbied for flood defences to which they would contribute financially (although the same flood defences covering the neighbouring Butlins holiday camp were fully funded by the local authority), and doggedly held out for the right to keep the Brooklands and Grasslands areas as they were, but with facilities funded by the council. They continually urged for the ‘town-planned’ section of the estate to be fully adopted by the CUDC. Amid the wrangling over provision of services, Clacton’s councillors were not always unsympathetic to the Jaywick ratepayers; some councillors had good relations with the Stedman family and saw Jaywick in a more positive light. This was at a time when Jaywick still attracted large numbers of holidaymakers to the Tendring district, whose contribution to the local economy was clear.

By the 1970s the Brooklands and Grasslands sections had entered the stalemate situation that still exists. An attempt by the CUDC in 1971 to compulsorily purchase remaining sections that had not become ‘suburbanised’, on the grounds that they were ‘dilapidated and insanitary’, failed completely. A Department of the Environment inspection concluded that, although the housing was substandard, the local authority had no right to force out the community. It went on to criticise the council for its failure to provide water and drainage, recommending that the area be upgraded.

Since then, although some parts of Jaywick followed the pattern of plotland models such as Canvey and Laindon (and the ‘bungalow town’ models of Peacehaven and Shoreham) changing from resort to suburbia as holidaymakers have become residents or retirees, the Brooklands and Grasslands sections have stubbornly refused to conform. Largely residential now, they uniquely maintain the physical appearance of their former holiday chalet past, albeit in a dilapidated state. The local authority, now Tendring District Council, has locked down any further development that does not conform to strict guidelines, including flood protection measures and, by way of a Section 106 legal agreement, a contribution towards regeneration. The council and the residents are now unlikely to alter that which remains.

If legislative control failed, why did this section of the Jaywick Sands Estate not simply eventually succumb to redevelopment or suburbanisation? First, the powerful and well-organised ratepayers association was never really intimidated by the CUDC; it generally seemed to prevail in most of the key issues, particularly with the threat of compulsory purchase. Second, areas surrounding the estate had firmly established resort status. Unlike Canvey, whose resort status had diminished, despite the appearance of two caravan sites, these areas now had numerous caravan and holiday camps, and a tourism-based local economy. It is plausible to argue that this helped keep the lobby for the preservation of Jaywick’s resort status (although fading and in decline) substantial enough to see it through.

[1] Lyons, M (2005) The Story of Jaywick Sands Estate, Chichester: Phillimore

[2] Eiden, H (2009) Victoria County History of Essex, Vol XI, Texts in Progress (Interwar Resorts), University of London

[3] Hardy, D and Ward, C (1984) Arcadia for All: the legacy of a makeshift landscape, London: Mansell

This article originally appeared as 'Stalemate at Jaywick Sands' in the Institute of Historic Building Conservation’s (IHBC’s) Context 175, published in March 2023. It was written by Sean O’Dell, a senior lecturer in contextual studies and social history at University Centre Colchester. His research interests include the East Anglian river navigations, the holiday resorts of the north Essex coast, and post-war working-class tourism and consumerism.

--Institute of Historic Building Conservation