Those of you who have been following 'The History of Shopfitting' (pay attention, you at the back!) will know that until relatively recently shopfittings were not regarded as disposable. Whilst today they often only have a life as long as a lease, in the past fixtures and fittings - and in particular shopfronts lasted through many changes of use and ownership with only minor alterations. The town of Canowindra, located 300km west of Sydney in the Cabonne LGA, is typical of a great many country towns throughout Australia. What makes Canowindra unique is that thanks to it having been listed as a National Trust Conservation area in the 1970s, it is a well preserved snapshot of early shopfitting and its gradual adaption over nearly a century.

Like many towns in Australia, it has had its ups and downs. Already established by the mid 1840's, Canowindra was boosted by the discovery of gold in nearby Orange and Cudal, and also by its own gold rush in the late 1860's. The bushranger Ben Hall achieved notoriety when he held up a hotel in town and shouted drinks for everyone.

However, the backbone of the towns prosperity was growing lucerne and the arrival of the railway. In its heyday, Canowindra had four department stores and all the banks had branches. These are all gone today.

The earliest surviving shop, dating from around 1890, differs from the others in that it has an all timber ingo, stall, sill and tophamper. The corner metal glazing bar or chromed metal button were typical details of the time for glass to glass joints as silicon was a long way off in the future!



The streetscape of Gaskill Street is largely composed of original shopfronts dating from about 1910 to 1930. Whilst the original interior fittings have largely gone due to many changes of use over the years, the shopfronts have remained unchanged and reflect the conditions and retail requirements of the times. Several of the original four department stores have been divided and re-purposed as individual shops and in some cases, adapted as part of residences.

The most obvious point of similarity with the shopfronts is the glazed top hampers which are nearly all leadlight glass. The reason for this is obvious. Even though Canowindra was in 1912 the fourth town to have electricity west of the Blue Mountains, it was generated in a shed behind a shop and only served a few premises. A glazed top hamper allowed in the maximum amount of daylight and this was important as even after electricity became more generally available, lighting was not very effective. This was a time when the art of making leadlight was an integral part of shopfitting, with some shopfitters like Wunderlich having whole departments devoted to it.



Because of the preponderance of shopfronts of a similar style, the exceptions tend to stand out. The Strand picture theatre started life as a blacksmiths before becoming a theatre and dance hall in 1921. The floor sloped down towards the stage and flooded when the nearby river broke its banks. The Spanish Mission face was added around 1934 - Hollywood comes to Canowindra.

Typically, many shops were designed with residences above and some residences have extended down into the vacant shops. Not just shops have been repurposed, the 1915 Bank of New South Wales is now a B&B, complete with bank vault in the dining room.

It was common for shopfitters of this time to advertise their work by putting a logo on the sill of their shopfronts. In a walk down Gaskill Street we found these three. The owners of the Wunderlich job seem to have polished their shopfront quite often, the others perhaps not so much! Wunderlich are well known and are still trading. Little is known of the others, other than they were Sydney based.