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'. Frinton was historically a small village comprising a church, several farms and a handful of cottages. In the early 1870s the village was said to comprise just six houses and have a population of 29, and it was noted that "...the sea has washed away a great part of the parish, and is still making encroachment." The oldest parts of the original parish church, dedicated to St Mary, date from the from 14th century. The
Tendring Hundred Railway was opened in 1867, skirting the northern edge of Frinton parish, but there was no station at Frinton initially; the nearest stations were at and . Much of the land around Frinton was subsequently bought by developers in the 1880s with the intention of laying out a new resort.
Frinton railway station opened in 1888 to serve the new town. 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. Powell Cooper rejected Bruff's plans for a pier, stipulated the quality of housing to be built and prohibited boarding houses and pubs. 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. 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. ==Governance==