Shops, Yenda

Yenda is a small village in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA) of New South Wales but it packs a punch as far as deco is concerned. Unfortunately, too many of the commercial buildings are vacant like this pair of shops.

Fire Station, Yenda

Yenda is a village near Griffith in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA) of New South Wales.

When I first heard of it, it was described as a cluster of Art Deco buildings around a village green. While that is not exactly true, there is a village green in Yenda and there several Art Deco buildings facing the green and in the nearby streets and I think it is certainly worth a detour off Burley Griffin Way to have a look.

This is the Yenda Fire Station.

Water Trough, Yenda

It is perhaps fitting that Yenda, a small town in the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area (MIA), has a concrete water trough just off the central park area. The inscription reads

Donated by
Annis & George Bills
Australia

~~~ UPDATE ~~~

Robin Grow has provided a link explaining who Annis & George Bills were. In part it reads ...

George Bills died 14 Dec 1927 and his wife, Annis died on the 20 Jun 1910. After providing some personal bequests, his will directed the income from the residue of his estate to be used to provide troughs for horses, and for the purpose of preventing cruelty, and alleviating the sufferings of animals in any country.

More then 500 troughs were erected in Australia mostly in New South Wales and Victoria, and some in overseas countries---England, Ireland, Switzerland [for donkeys] and Japan.

...

Later a standard design was adopted, and Rolca concrete products supplied many hundreds of the troughs in Victoria and New South Wales. Troughs were supplied on application to the Bills Trust by Councils, and truckloads of 10 would often leave the Rocla Factory for installation by a team of men in country towns.

Website: Bills Horse Troughs

Water Treatment Plant, near Yenda

I know, your eyes are drawn to those two huge bright blue tanks at this water treatment plant near Yenda, NSW, but what about the squat, square concrete structure. Sure, it has some unsympathetic modern additions of PVC pipes but it also has some subtle stepping about two thirds of the way up.

Service Station, Yenda

What do we think of this little servo in the rural NSW town of Yenda?

I really like it.

I like the stepped roof line at the side of the building and I like the curved ends of the faded CALTEX signs.

Yenda Cafe, Yenda

When I was in Leeton for their Art Deco Festival earlier this month I got a tip that nearby Yenda had some Art Deco buildings. It's about a 50 minute drive from Leeton to Yenda which by Australian standards IS nearby although it is closer to Griffith which also has some nice deco and modernist buildings.

I hope you can see why I really, really like the Yenda Cafe. Firstly it has a classic deco element right in the centre of the slightly stepping roofline.Then there is the lettering ... full-on deco and no doubting where in the world we are.

And how about those serations on the top corners. I can't describe them simply as stepping because they are so much more than that. Notice also that the metal rods that hold up the verandah are mounted on a small shield, such attention to detail.

On either side of the door there are these glass display cases. I'd just seen similar but slightly more ornate ones at a shop in Leeton. Both buildings also had the same vents below the front shop windows so perhaps there were designed or built by the same person.

The Yenda Cafe could be a very classy venue in any city in the world so it is a real shame that it is vacant, not looking its best and perhaps with no chance of rehabilitation. Yenda is a small place and I don't know that it can support a cafe or a shop of any kind. There is another vacant deco shop within 50 metres and, no joke, I only saw three people and a small dog. Perhaps everyone else was in the pub watching the footy.