The place-name 'Frinton' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it appears as Frientuna. The name may mean 'fenced-in or enclosed town or settlement'.[2]
Until late Victorian times, Frinton-on-Sea was a church, several farms and a handful of cottages. In the 1890s, the original developer of the town, Peter Bruff, was bought out by the industrialist Richard Powell Cooper, who had already laid out the golf course.[3] Powell Cooper rejected Bruff's plans for a pier, stipulated the quality of housing to be built and prohibited boarding houses and pubs.[3] The Sea Defence Act 1903 established a project to stabilise the cliffs, with the Greensward, which separates the Esplanade from the sea, put in place to stabilise the land further.[3]
In the first half of the 20th century the town attracted visitors from high society. Connaught Avenue, named after the Duke of Connaught and opened by his wife, was nicknamed East Anglia's Bond Street.[citation needed] Other attractions included a lido, complete with palm trees, hotels along the Esplanade, and an amateur tennis tournament. The Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) frequented the golf club and Winston Churchill rented a house.[3] Frinton was the last target in England attacked by the Luftwaffe, in 1944.[4]
The town has a reputation for a conservative nature (although it was in a Labour constituency from 1997 to 2005). Until recently, there were no pubs, although there have long been bars in seafront hotels and at the golf and War Memorial clubs. The first pub, the Lock and Barrel, opened in 2000.[5]
Governance
An electoral ward in the name of Frinton exists. The population of this ward at the 2011 Census was 4,002.[6] On 1 April 1934 the parish was abolished to form "Frinton and Walton".[7] In 1931 the parish had a population of 2196.[8]
Geography
Frinton has three points of entry by road: an unadopted road from Walton-on-the-Naze in the north, a residential road, and a CCTV monitored level crossing adjacent to the railway station which replaced the older gated crossing in 2009. Frinton was once geographically distinct, but housing estates now line the roads between Frinton and Walton-on-the-Naze, Kirby Cross and Kirby-Le-Soken.
The town has sandy and stone beach washed daily, more than a mile (1,600 m) long, with wardens in season, and an area of sea zoned for swimming, sailing and windsurfing. The shore is lined by a promenade with several hundred beach huts. Landward from the promenade is a long greensward, popular with young and old alike, stretching from the boundary with Walton-on-Naze to the golf club in the south.
Six miles offshore lies Gunfleet Lighthouse, constructed in 1850 but abandoned in 1921.[9]
Religion
There are two Anglican parish churches: St Mary the Virgin is Norman in parts. The church of St Mary Magdalene was built in 1928 to accommodate worshippers from St Mary the Virgin. Across the road from St Mary Magadalene is the Evangelical Gospel Chapel. Frinton's Catholic church, the Church of the Sacred Heart and St Francis, was built in 1904, as a public hall known as Queen's Hall; the architect was William Hayne. It was acquired as a church in the 1920s.[10] There is also a Methodist church, and a Free church.
Media
Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC East and ITV Anglia. Television signals are received from the Sudbury TV transmitter. [11] Local radio stations are BBC Essex on 103.5 FM, Heart East on 96.1 FM, Greatest Hits Radio East (formerly Dream 100 FM) on 100.2 FM and Actual Radio an DAB station. The town is served by the local newspaper, Clacton and Frinton Gazette which publishes on Thursdays. [12]
Frinton's population of retirees makes it the butt of jokes, with the LNER advertising slogan "Harwich for the Continent" being appended "Frinton for the incontinent".[14] However, its genteel nature has ensured that property 'within the gates' is well sought after.
Frinton was used in a recent Subway Sandwiches commercial for the UK, although the advert was not actually filmed in Frinton.[15]
In Season 1 Episode 2 of the television series Minder Terry says in response to Arthur swearing on his mother's grave that he knows for a fact his mother is alive and well and living in Frinton.
Notable residents
The actor Ross Davidson was living in Frinton-on-Sea at the time of his death in October 2006.
Richard Cobb (1917 - 1996), Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, was born in the town.
In the 1920s and 1930s Turret Lodge on the Esplanade was owned by Fritz Dupre, the "manganese ore king", for use as his family's holiday home.
The late Group Captain Alfred 'Ken' Gatward, who flew a mission to occupied Paris during the Second World War to drop a French Tricolour on the Arc de Triomphe, lived in the town.[17]
Actress Deborah Watling, best known for her role in Doctor Who as a companion to the second Doctor, lived in the town until her death in 2017.
Related Research Articles
Clacton-on-Sea, often simply called Clacton, is a seaside town and resort in the county of Essex, on the east coast of England. It is located on the Tendring Peninsula and is the largest settlement in the Tendring District, with a population of 53,200 (2021). The town is situated around 77 miles north-east of London, 40 miles east-north-east of Chelmsford, 58 miles north-east of Southend-on-Sea, 16 miles south-east of Colchester and 16 miles south of Harwich.
Tendring District is a local government district in north-east Essex, England. Its council is based in Clacton-on-Sea, the largest town. Other towns are Brightlingsea, Harwich, Frinton-on-Sea and Walton-on-the-Naze.
Walton-on-the-Naze is a seaside town on the North Sea coast. It is part of the parish of Frinton and Walton, in the Tendring district in Essex, England. The town is located north of Clacton and south of the port of Harwich; Frinton-on-Sea lies to the south of the town. The town has a population of 12,054, according to the 2011 census; in 1931, the parish had a population of 3,071. The town attracts many visitors; The Naze and the pier are the main attractions.
Thorpe-le-Soken is a village and civil parish in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It is located east of Colchester, west of Walton-on-the-Naze and Frinton-on-Sea, and north of Clacton-on-Sea.
Harwich was a parliamentary constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until its abolition for the 2010 general election.
The Sunshine Coast Line is the current marketing name of what originally was the Tendring Hundred Railway Line, a branch off the Great Eastern Main Line in the East of England. It links Colchester to the seaside resorts of Clacton-on-Sea and, via a branch, Walton-on-the-Naze. The line is part of the Network Rail Strategic Route 7, SRS 07.08, and is classified as a London & South East commuter line. Passenger services on the line are currently operated by Greater Anglia.
Peter Schuyler Bruff was an English civil engineer and land developer remembered primarily for his part in establishing the East Anglian railway networks between the 1840s and 1860s. His contribution to the region's infrastructure and development extended far beyond the railways, however, and included the renovation of the Colchester water supply (1851-1880) and the Ipswich sewerage system, the development of the town of Harwich and the Essex resorts of Walton-on-the-Naze and Clacton on Sea, and the late Victorian revival of the Coalport porcelain factory in Shropshire, which he purchased in 1880.
Great Bentley is a village, civil parish and electoral ward in the Tendring district of north Essex, England, located seven miles east of Colchester. The parish includes the hamlets of Aingers Green and South Heath. It is home to the second largest village green in the country, at a size of 43 acres (170,000 m2), behind Duncan Down and has won 'Essex Village of the Year' and 'Daily Telegraph/Calor Gas Village of the Year' awards. Great Bentley railway station provides the village with frequent rail services along the Sunshine Coast Line to London Liverpool Street, Clacton-on-Sea, Colchester and Walton-on-the-Naze.
Frinton and Walton is a civil parish in the Tendring district of Essex, England.
Clacton is a constituency in Essex represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2024 by Nigel Farage of Reform UK. It is centred on the seaside town of Clacton, hence its name.
Elmstead Market is a village in the civil parish of Elmstead, in the Tendring district of Essex, England. It lies 3 km north-east of Wivenhoe and 6 km east of Colchester. It is on the A133 road which runs to Clacton-on-Sea to the south-east and Colchester to the west. In 2018 it had an estimated population of 1,684.
Frinton-on-Sea railway station is on the Walton branch of the Sunshine Coast Line in the East of England, serving the seaside town of Frinton-on-Sea, Essex. It is 68 miles 66 chains (110.8 km) down the line from London Liverpool Street and is situated between Kirby Cross to the west and Walton-on-the-Naze to the east. Its three-letter station code is FRI.
Walton-on-the-Naze railway station is one of the two eastern termini of the Sunshine Coast Line, a branch of the Great Eastern Main Line, in the East of England. It serves the seaside town of Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex. It is 70 miles 15 chains (113.0 km) down the line from London Liverpool Street. Its three-letter station code is WON. The preceding station on the line is Frinton-on-Sea.
The CO postcode area, also known as the Colchester postcode area, is a group of sixteen postcode districts in the east of England, within nine post towns. These cover northeast Essex and a small part of south Suffolk. The main sorting office is in Colchester.
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Holland-on-Sea is suburb of Clacton, in the Tendring district, in east Essex in England. Located south of the little village of Great Holland and directly north of Clacton-on-Sea, it has bus links to Walton-on-the-Naze and Clacton-on-Sea. It is a short coastal walk down the coastline to Clacton.
Walton and Frinton Lifeboat Station is an RNLI station located in the town of Walton-on-the-Naze in the English county of Essex.
↑ "Frinton-on-Sea". www.clacton-on-sea-essex.co.uk. Archived from the original on 26 February 2011. Retrieved 5 January 2011.
↑ Burkeman, Oliver (15 September 2000). "There goes the neighbourhood". The Guardian. London: Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 24 January 2009.
↑ Collins, Michael (5 June 2004). "Frinton-on-Sea: last outpost of a long-forgotten Empire". The Independent. Archived from the original on 3 February 2012. Retrieved 15 May 2015. Famously, many of Frinton's residents are in their dotage (a phrase which gets short shrift locally is "Harwich for the Continent, Frinton for the incontinent") and adhere to a sartorial decorum and a social etiquette of a bygone age.
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