Founded in 1899 as a private members' club, Frinton Lawn Tennis, Croquet and Bowls Club flourished in post Victorian England. Although Croquet and Bowls were original activities of the Club, it is for tennis that the Club has become world-famous.
Edwardian England saw Frinton as its playground and the well-heeled and
famous flocked to the town. Winston Churchill, Douglas Fairbanks, Gladys
Cooper and Robert Morley all bought houses in the town, and the tennis club
was the main social and sporting venue.
Next to Wimbledon, Frinton was regarded as the major venue in the tennis calendar - offering 22 grass courts to its members visitors - and a social standing on a par with Henley and Ascot. As a tournament venue, Frinton has attracted the world's leading tennis players for over 7 decades.
WHAT MAKES FRINTON SO DIFFERENT?
Anyone who visits Frinton tennis club, whether as a player or spectator, won't forget the experience. Tucked away behind an unimposing entrance is this historic and spectacular thatched (yes, thatched) clubhouse. This members' bar is lined with wooden panels inscribed names of more than a century of tournament and trophy winners. There are assorted grandees -
countesses, knights, and many household names aplenty.
Take Mrs Fearnley - Whittingstall, a Frinton champion in 1930 and 1933. A
relation of hairy Hugh the River Cottage downsizer, perhaps?
For tennis aficionados and historians there are Wimbledon champions and
favourites galore who were also champions at Frinton: Kay Stammers, Mrs
Lambert Chambers, Norman Brookes, Kitty Godfree, Tony Mottram, Christine
Truman, Margaret Court and Neil Fraser.
Then there are the honorary life members: Mark Cox, Betty Stove, VJ
Amritraj, Virginia Wade (1977 Wimbledon champion) and Sir Cliff Richard
among them - indeed, Cliff may have sung at Wimbledon but, fortunately some may say, he played tennis at Frinton.
Your eye will be inexorably drawn down the hundreds of names, halting,
perhaps, on some faded lettering - a distant triumph of a once-revered grass
court gladiator.
The town of Frinton has, jokingly, been pilloried as a municipal retirement
home and bastion of blue-rinse conservatism - it was here, after all, where
kerfuffles over the opening of a chip shop and a pub created page-top
stories in the national press.
Frinton has other, quirky, virtues - both for the player and the spectator.
This corner of maritime Essex is classified as "semi-arid" by
meteorologists. It has an annual rainfall lower than Beirut.
