The Systems Administrator had been promising for weeks to take me to Frinton, so as today was bright and sunny we went for a New Year's walk by the sea after lunch. Us and half the other inhabitants of north east Essex, plus their dogs. The top of Connaught Avenue was heaving with traffic, as was the Esplanade, and I could sense the SA starting to wonder whether we'd find a parking space, but we did. On the path leading down to the sea we met our neighbours, who greeted us remarkably cheerfully, given that our poplar tree fell on their garden last year. I'm glad there are no hard feelings about that.
Frinton-on-Sea is possibly the most genteel place in England. It became famous for the fuss the inhabitants created over a period of three years when Network Rail wanted to replace the old-fashioned wooden railway gates at the level crossing on the main road into Frinton with modern lifting ones. They strenuously resisted proposals to open a pub and a chip shop as well. Frinton is posh.
The walkway along the sea is lined with beach huts, sometimes in single file and sometimes in rows two and three deep, running up the shallow cliff. Some are painted in bright, classic beach hut seaside colours, and some are just stained shed brown. A few were in use, families sitting on their porches or spilling out on to the path with plastic tables and chairs. I wondered whether for some this was an annual New Year's Day ritual, whatever the weather. It was near high water, and waves slapped melodiously against the sea wall and groynes.
The dogs were oh-so-happy, tails wagging, greeting the other dogs, investigating interesting smells, miraculously managing not to wrap their leads around passing pedestrians' legs. A small brown terrier ran along the top of the sea wall, hopped down when a larger dog at ground level sniffed him in an alarming manner, skirted round his potential aggressor, and leapt back on to the wall. On a patch of sand not covered by the tide dogs raced up and down, and in and out of the sea.
The light was strong and clear, so that the colours the beach huts and the greensward seemed to glow. We could see the wind turbines scattered across the lower reaches of the Thames estuary, those on the Gunfleet Sands close at hand, and the London Array further out. I've stood at the end of Clacton Pier on a wet day and not been able to see as far as the Gunfleet. The rotating blades do have a sort of sculptural beauty, but it's strange to think how they intrude on the seascape of the estuary. We've crossed it enough times in past years, picking our way down the Black Deep and through Fisherman's Gat. There are commercial shipping buoys, but they can be hard to see in foul weather, and especially before the days of satellite navigation it felt a very lonely place. Gone now are the days of watching the echo sounder like a hawk to make sure you didn't stray on to the edge of the Gunfleet, for there are 48 large turbines to remind you where it is.
At Walton we walked through the amusement arcade to the end of the pier. A daily fishing permit will set you back seven pounds, or you can buy an annual licence for sixty-five. People were fishing, all men, though next to one fisherman sat a woman, leaning against the railings around the edge of the pier, reading a book. Some of the men had got little fisherman's stools, and two had umbrellas, though I noticed that one umbrella was prudently lashed to the pier. Several had flasks, and tubes of Pringles were the snack of choice. You don't seem to need to do much, fishing from a pier. Most of the time you don't even hold the rod, just lean it against the balustrade.
The Walton and Frinton lifeboat lives permanently afloat, moored to a large purpose built pontoon alongside the pier. She was new in 2011, is called The Irene Muriel Rees, and has her own Facebook page. She is a Tamar class all weather lifeboat, and was named by The Duke of Kent, the RNLI's President. The pier is half a mile long, and the SA wondered how the crew got to the lifeboat when the shout went up. Do they run, or do they have a little electric buggy stashed away somewhere behind the amusement arcade? Or bicycles?
Walton is not so posh as Frinton, or so prosperous. Opposite the entrance to the pier, a charming Italianate brick building with a small tower and windows shaped like Norman arches is boarded up, as was the first cafe we came to, while the pub across the road was has a To let sign. However, while there is a little bad post-war infilling, there are a lot of nice Victorian shops with intact frontages above the tacky fascias, and it would only need a little prosperity and fairy dust to fall upon Walton for it to become as chic as Whitstable. Maybe it will be discovered by the seaside-going inhabitants of north London and become the next Islington-on-Sea in the next economic cycle.
The Systems Administrator took me to see the Walton and Frinton Yacht Club, among a huddle of red corrugated iron sheds and overwintering yachts at the top of a creek off the Backwaters. Most of the houses by the creek had signs up saying Save the Mere. It turns out there is a proposal to build a supermarket, houses and a marina on the mere, a silted-up former boating lake. The landowners say it would act as a catalyst for economic regeneration of the town. Well, it would certainly economically regenerate them. Opponents to the scheme would prefer to see the lake restored, with nature trails, and a windmill.
We walked back by road, to see the architecture. Frinton is largely a twentieth century creation, and includes a scattering of International Modernism, houses with white stucco walls, flat roofs, and ocean-liner-inspired curving tiers and balconies. Some were modest, others rather large and grand. Many had sadly been spoiled by inappropriate PVC replacement windows. One retained its sunray pattern railings, painted in an authentic shade of pale mint green. Residential Frinton does not seem to have been designed for long distance pedestrian use, with a lot of dead ends, and we took a slightly circuitous route back to the Esplanade. Almost everyone else had already gone home.
I always register the front gardens on that sort of a walk. Today we saw a lot that were paved over for parking, very few that were untidy, quite a number of small and pointless lawns, and a particular local aesthetic, pea shingle studded with conifers, evergreen euonymus and hebe, all severely trimmed. The most sophisticated examples had crazy paving edging around each shrub. Christmas decorations on the front of the house and in the front windows do not appear to be popular in Frinton.
The houses near the golf course are the grandest, great sprawling inter-war interpretations of something vaguely neo-classical, with a few Arts and Crafts examples thrown in. Most are supremely ugly, and they must be worth a bomb. Surrey-on-Sea.
The SA measured the distance on the map when we got home, and we covered six miles, including the detour along the pier.
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