Station Approach
Frinton-on-Sea,
Essex, CO13 9JT
October to March:
The museum is closed
April to September:
Every Tuesday from 10am to 12 noon
ACCESSIBILITY: As the Crossing Cottage and the Railway Museum are situated in old railway buildings, access is limited but help is available on request. There are steps into the Crossing Cottage and the toilet is unfortunately unsuitable for disabled use. There are cabinet as well as wall-mounted displays in both buildings. There are paved paths and lawns in the gardens as well as benches.
FRINTON CROSSING COTTAGE MUSEUM & GARDENS and the TREVOR BRIGHT RAILWAY MUSEUM: a short history of the site comprising Frinton Crossing Cottage, its Gardens & the relocated Gatekeeper’s Hut.
Frinton & Walton Heritage Trust was very lucky to secure an arrangement with British Rail in 1984 to transform this strategic entrance into Frinton from a derelict and abandoned area into a welcoming and vibrant community hub for both residents and visitors to enjoy.
The Cottage, Gardens and Gatekeeper’s hut (which houses the Trevor Bright Railway Museum) are part of a larger railway complex which includes the detached adjacent building (now a doctor’s surgery), but originally the station master’s house and the station buildings themselves including both platforms. We must not forget the level crossing barriers which replaced the old-fashioned gates in 2009 and which you can now find in the gardens of the railway car park, together with memorabilia from the old Liverpool Street Station. It is certainly worth the very short walk down Station Approach to see these!
​
The railway first came through Frinton in 1867 on its way to Walton, the end of the line. Frinton was then a small hamlet with much of the larger village having been washed out to sea as a result of coastal erosion. Its small population did not warrant a station or even an official ‘halt’ but by 1886 plans were afoot to develop Frinton into a seaside resort with both the water supply arriving and the railway station being built in 1888. The first timetabled train arrived on Sunday, 1 July; Frinton-on-Sea was on its way.
The ground between what is now Witton Wood Road and the station soon became a goods yard with two general sidings and a line behind the platform serving Moy’s Coal Yard. But freight services, very important during the time of Frinton’s burgeoning development, were abandoned in the 1960s and eventually cleared or disappeared under the trackside vegetation. Concrete pillboxes were erected during the Second World War at many strategic points against possible invasion along the coast. A survivor, which guarded the crossing gates at Frinton station, is easily missed if you are driving; it still nestles close to the level crossing on the north-west corner.
​
The Trust published a 16-page booklet, written by one of its founders the late Jerry Russell, in 1989 which contains a detailed history of the first ‘100 years of Frinton’s Railway’, if you would like to find out more about this subject.
The building we now know as ‘Crossing Cottage’ is a traditional ‘two-up, two-down’ and follows a blueprint used frequently by the railway. There was no dedicated kitchen or bathroom when it was originally built for the crossing keeper and his family, but these facilities were added in an extension to the west which also houses a verandah. At the east end of the cottage is the front door which faces Connaught Avenue, rather than Station Approach which is now our official postal address.
The placing of the front door gave the crossing keeper direct, and quick, access from his house to his cabin which sat adjacent the level crossing. The cabin housed the levers which changed the overhead line signals as well as the points and it is where the crossing keeper would spend much of his day, opening and closing the gates by hand so each passing train could complete its journey east to Walton where it would turn around and then head back up towards Colchester and London passing through Frinton again as it went.​
.jpeg)
When the level crossing gates were replaced by automatic barriers in 2009, the site of the crossing keeper’s cabin was needed to house the barrier equipment. Rather than demolish it, the Trust requested that it be moved to an adjacent spot just west of its original siting, thus remaining within the building complex and still opposite the Cottage’s front door!
The levers were fortunately included in the resiting project, particularly as they include machine gun bullet holes from one of six Focke-Wolf Fw190 fighter-bombers which suddenly appeared over the area at 2.10pm on Sunday, 14 March 1943, strafing the line. Each of the six aircraft dropped a high-explosive bomb: three at Frinton, two at Walton and one at Lower Kirby, resulting in a total of six deaths, fourteen injured, a number of houses demolished and many more damaged. One of the high-explosive bombs exploded near Frinton’s level crossing gates, causing a number of injuries, but none serious. So, on that day, the Germans struck Frinton station twice.
The Trevor Bright Railway Museum is well worth a visit; it houses a treasure trove of local railway memorabilia and technology from a bygone age. It is open from 10am to noon on Tuesday mornings from Easter to early October and also by appointment. Please contact Tony Barrett on 01255 674678 for more information.
The Crossing Cottage garden is open for coffee every Tuesday morning between 10am and noon from Easter to mid-October and the third Tuesday morning of every month during the rest of the year. During the summer there is normally freshly-grown local fruit and vegetables available to buy as well plants and the Trust’s publications on local history topics. Our team of volunteer gardeners is always busy keeping the cottage garden, its wildlife area, small orchard, veggie patch, compost bins, pond and lawns looking well-maintained for its visitors. It is a lovely place to sit in the peace and quiet. Entrance is free but donations are welcome to help us maintain the site.
