General Market Building

The General Market Building is a structure that features a top-lit market hall and a row of six shops along its western elevation facing Henblas Street, with public conveniences located in the southeast corner. The entrance to the market hall is at the southwest corner, leading towards the northwest. The building has single-storey screen walls made of red Ruabon brick, accented with ashlar dressings and terracotta details, topped by a parabolic slate roof that includes a continuous glazed clerestory, ornately traceried in the northern gable.

The main entrance, which faces the Butcher's Market across the street, is marked by scrolled ironwork screens in double gates beneath a shouldered lintel that features the words 'General Market' in raised letters. This is set within a high segmental archway supported by stepped pilasters, and above it is a dated panel set in a patterned terracotta tympanum, topped by a truncated stone coped gable with ornate terracotta corbelling and volutes at the parapet.

From the angled entrance, the screen walls extend east and north. The short eastern return houses the public conveniences, which has an advanced entrance to the right, a second arched doorway in the center, and small recessed windows with raking sills and stone lintels. The longer northern range contains the shops, where some original details remain, including recessed doorways and iron-framed windows with slender bracketed corner posts and upper margin lights. Although the fascias were originally incorporated in iron framing, much of this detail has been renewed. Brick pilasters are located at the outer angles, supporting a stone cornice that extends over the shop fronts and is topped by a parapet with inset terracotta panels. There is a second entrance to the market hall on the northern side, which mirrors the main entrance with scrolled screens leading to paired iron gates and a flat stone lintel beneath a raised panelled parapet. A further shop, designed similarly to the others, occupies the northwest corner of the site, while the eastern and northern elevations are blind.

The market hall itself consists of five aisled bays with apsidal ends. It is supported by cast iron octagonal columns with ornamental capitals that carry hooped iron trusses, featuring openwork angle brackets over the aisles and between the trusses, and has a tongue and groove boarded roof.