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.

[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.

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.

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.

Michael Denison, Vanessa Redgrave, Timothy West, Jane Asher, David Suchet, Gary Oldman, Owen Teale, Lynda Bellingham, Jack Klaff, Antony Sher and Neil Dudgeon all started their careers at Frinton.

For many years it was run by the British actor Jack Watling, and his son Giles and son-in-law Seymour Matthews.

Clarke, novelist and writer of several Ealing comedies, including Passport To Pimlico and The Lavender Hill Mob, lived there as a child.

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.