General Market Building

The General Market Building is a 19th-century structure featuring 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 situated at the southwest corner and leads towards the northwest. The building is characterized by single-storey screen walls made of red Ruabon brick, adorned with ashlar dressings and terracotta details, and topped with a parabolic slate roof that includes a continuous glazed clerestory, which is ornately traceried in the northern gable.

The main entrance, facing the Butcher's Market across the street, is marked by scrolled ironwork screens and double gates beneath a shouldered lintel that displays 'General Market' in raised letters, all set within a high segmental archway on stepped pilasters. Above this, there is a truncated stone coped gable featuring ornate terracotta corbelling and volutes at the parapet. From this angled entrance, the screen walls extend east and north. The short eastern return contains 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 accommodates the shops, where some original details remain in the shop fronts, 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 at the outer angles support a stone cornice that continues 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, detailed similarly to the others, occupies the northwest corner of the site, while the elevations to the east and north are blind.

Inside, the market hall consists of five aisled bays with apsidal ends. It features cast iron octagonal columns with ornamental capitals that support hooped iron trusses, complemented by openwork angle brackets over the aisles and between the trusses, with a tongue and groove boarded roof.