Clacton-on-Sea possible invasion beach-head for Napoleon and his Dutch allies. There was a large army and militia camp where Holland-on-Sea now stands. In 1810 5 Martello Towers were built there to guard the beaches between Jaywick and Holland. Clacton was still a small village and a few outlying hamlets when the Essex railway engineer Peter Bruff, the steamboat owner William Jackson, and a group of businessmen built a pier and hotel there in the 1871. In the 1880s the Great Eastern Railway reached it, and it grew into the largest seaside resort between Southend and Yarmouth, with some 10,000 people by
Frinton-on-Sea railway station Railway (THR) in 1867. The Great Eastern Railway (GER) acquired the THR and the adjacent Clacton-on-Sea Railway on 1 July 1883. The Wivenhoe & Brightlingsea line was absorbed by the GER on 9 June 1893. The line became part of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) in 1923 and then the Eastern Region of British Railways in 1948 following nationalisation of the railways. The station is immediately to the west of a level crossing that provides road access to Frinton. Residents of the town who live inside the gates of the crossing attach a particular status to this fact.