London has fourEversleighRoads and an Eversleigh Gardens, but I'm fairly confident the most interesting is the Eversleigh Road in Battersea. Its houses are unduly attractive for a start.
Eversleigh Road is part of the Shaftesbury Park estate built between 1873 and 1877 by the Artisans, Labourers and General Dwellings Company. This early housing co-operative was determined to build decent accommodation for the working classes rather than the usual overcrowded slums, a worthy concept which marginally predates the model villages of Bournville and Port Sunlight built by industrialists up north. The land had originally been used for market gardening, lavender and piggeries and was sandwiched between a railway viaduct and a few early housing developments to the north of Lavender Hill. If you've ever ridden a train east out of Clapham Junction you'll have passed the backs the houses on Eversleigh Road.
As well as exemplary houses the plan was that the new estate would include a school, a wash house and a recreation ground, but absolutely no public houses because the emphasis was on enriching and nourishing the lives of working people. Lord Shaftesbury was very much in favour of this philosophy which is why he agreed to have the estate named after him. Alas the proposed open space in Brassey Square was ultimately given over to 48 new cottages instead because there's nothing new in developers rolling back on promises for profit. Houses were divided into four classes containing 5, 6, 7 or 8 rooms - and only in the latter case a bathroom. The smallest originally sold for £170 and now go for £900,000, even without the addition of an attic extension, because blimey Battersea has gone up in the world.
Eversleigh Road almost starts on busy Latchmere Road but doesn't quite, which helps to make it a relatively quiet backwater. It immediately looks gorgeous, especially at this time of year when the plane and lime trees have shed their leaves to reveal an unbroken curve of chimneypotted cottages. Doorways are generally paired with linked porches, and above these appears the ornate emblem of the Artisans, Labourers and General Dwellings Company along with the year of construction. On Eversleigh Road this is AD 1873 at one end but morphs silently into AD 1874 somewhere near the pillar box. Most emblems remain plain white plaster but some owners have painted theirs, sometimes to great effect but occasionally creating a kitsch mess.
What you're getting as a resident is a stock brick home with sash windows and a pitched slate roof, and maybe a smidgeon of redbrick detailing. Front doors open just above street level, having been built in an era when scrubbing one's front step was more important than level access. Front gardens sit behind a hedge or low wall and are barely broad enough for a bin, so everyone with a car has to make do with battling for a space in the street. Back gardens are more generous but have to be accessed through the house, no space having been wasted on a back alley. A couple of corner plots shine out with a full-on Gothic turret, but if anyone else wanted a third storey they've had to hide their extension round the back. The street's uniformly lovely without being excessively uniform, which is why it so works.
Residents of Eversleigh Road play a strong Christmas wreath game, most of these baubly or evergreen although one homeowner has questionably poked nine poppies into a loop of silver tinsel and hung that on the front door instead. Hanging baskets don't appear to be permitted although the occasional lush windowbox passes muster. Only one family has dared to stick their children's festive designs in the window, but that's up in the 300s by which point the conservation area has terminated and the houses aren't quite so unattainable. The cherry tree at number 39 is already budding pink even though it normally blazes in spring. Only two of the original shops survive, now knocked together to create a Best One supermarket which, tellingly, chooses to plaster its window with an enormous glass of wine. Local residents, we see you.
If you were hoping for a frisson of transport-related content I can offer you two. The Shaftesbury Estate is served by one of London's twiddlier buses, the G1, which weaves through its minor streets towards a total cul-de-sac of a terminus. Buses ultimately funnel off Eversleigh Road into Wickersley Road where drivers have to reverse awkwardly between the primary school and the Scout Centre, before then carrying absolutely nobody all the way to Streatham. Meanwhile the tarmac indent by the supermarket leads to a ramped railway bridge offering generous views across the outer extremities of the Windrush line. Here I encountered two trainspotters focusing their lenses excitedly on a couple of lengthy freight trains, although I imagine residents whose homes back onto this infrastructural artery aren't quite so enamoured every time one rumbles by.
The eastern tip of Eversleigh Road was originally called Arliss Road and isn't quite so plush, being part of a separate estate and ten years older. These homes are still highly desirable terraces, but the stigma of having been built alongside an acetic acid works never dissipates. A metal gate ultimately blocks access to Broughton Street for anything more vehicular than a moped, and has been quietly dampening the traffic hereabouts for many years before people started moaning about Low Traffic Neighbourhoods.
If you'd like to know more about Eversleigh Road I recommended wading through Wandsworth council's Shaftesbury Park Estate Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy, which is plainly what the author of the relevant Wikipedia article did. Or if you live near Queens Park W10 or Wood Green N22 you already have a local Artisans, Labourers and General Dwellings Company estate you can enjoy instead, one of which is called Noel Park so obviously I've covered that for Christmas already. Seasons greetings.
