General Market Building

The General Market Building is a 19th-century structure that features a top-lit market hall and a row of six shops along its western elevation facing Henblas Street, as well as 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, accented 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, features scrolled ironwork screens with double gates beneath a shouldered lintel that displays 'General Market' in raised letters, all set within a high segmental archway supported by stepped pilasters. Above this is a truncated stone coped gable adorned with ornate terracotta corbelling and volutes at the parapet. From this 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, some of which retain original features such as recessed doorways and iron-framed windows with slender bracketed corner posts and upper margin lights. Although the fascias were originally incorporated into iron framing, much of this detail has been renewed. Brick pilasters mark the outer angles and support a stone cornice that continues over the shop fronts, 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.

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, which are enhanced with openwork angle brackets over the aisles and between the trusses, and a tongue and groove boarded roof.