In 1859 the Tendring Hundred Railway was formed to extend the branch line from
Hythe to , which opened on 8 May 1863 for both passenger and goods services from . By the time the Wivenhoe extension opened, the line was operated by the
Great Eastern Railway (GER) which bought the line from the Tendring Hundred Railway in 1883. The line was then extended to on 8 January 1866.
Bentley Green station opened on the same day. It adopted its current name of
Great Bentley in 1877. Initially the station was served by a single track but the line was doubled between Great Bentley and by the GER in 1891. The Wivenhoe to Great Bentley section was doubled in 1898. Operation of the station passed to the
London and North Eastern Railway in 1923. In 1948 the station became part of the
Eastern Region of British Railways. The 1955 modernisation plan proposed the
electrification of the line through Great Bentley and electric services commenced on 13 April 1959. There was once a small goods yard to the east of the station which had cattle pens, coal wharves and an end loading ramp. In later years the main traffic was coal, agricultural fertilisers and sugar beet. The yard was closed in the 1950s.
Network Rail replaced the manually-controlled
level crossing gates at Great Bentley with barriers in 2008 as part of a £104 million resignalling project between Colchester and Clacton-on-Sea. The former
signal box was located at the eastern end of the "up" (London-bound) platform and had 25 levers for the signals and points. Great Bentley has two platforms. Platform 1 is used for westbound services towards and
London Liverpool Street. Platform 2 is for eastbound services towards and . When built, the two platforms were linked with a lattice footbridge. This was removed in the 1950s when the line was being prepared for electrification. ==Services==