Prior to the hipped roof, the walls would have been slightly higher at roof level to conceal the gutters, probably in concrete, these are now hidden beneath the deep soffits. The only clues today are the less weathered concrete roof tiles and the deeper soffits compared to it’s neighbours.
History details
26 – 28 Eversleigh Avenue, originally built as Thornton’s only known example of a flat roofed contribution to architecture in the more Moderne style. It has some similarities with its neighbours, e.g. soldier courses of sill banding and may have been the work of the same builder. The majority of homes in this style were built by speculative builders who were "testing the water" rather than architects and none dared to build an estate of them. The flat roof gave a new crisper look but failed to interest the buying public and never really caught on. With the materials available at the time, the life of the roof was expected to be shorter than a tiled roof and Eversleigh was converted to a hipped tiled roof as a pair in 1999.
K.Hulme, Photoshop Master How Eversleigh would have looked without its hipped roof. This section of Eversleigh Avenue is also thought to be the only road surface in Thornton to be concreted, eventually covered with tarmac in the nineties but the original surface is still evident in parts.
Another flat roofed example still survives locally at Clarence Avenue, Cleveleys and South Avenue, Cleveleys, (picture below).
Picture by Mike Pollard 2008 Originally the roofs at South Avenue only had a small roof access turret, the far one now has a third storey addition, the other is unchanged. Flat roofed houses in this style were often built with the curve edged metal framed "suntrap" bay windows and examples exist at Fleetwood Road, Bispham. Unfortunately the curved glass is often replaced with flat UPVC windows. |