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 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 with a continuous glazed clerestory that is ornately traceried in the north-facing gable.

The main entrance at the southwest faces the Butcher's Market across the street and features scrolled ironwork screens with double gates beneath a shouldered lintel that has 'General Market' inscribed in raised letters. This is set within a high segmental archway on stepped pilasters, topped by a dated panel in a patterned terracotta tympanum, and a truncated stone coped gable 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 at the center, and small recessed windows with raking sills and stone lintels.

The longer northern range contains the shops, where some original features 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, culminating in a parapet with inset terracotta panels. There is a second entrance to the market hall on the north 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, supported by cast iron octagonal columns with ornamental capitals. These columns carry hooped iron trusses, which are complemented by openwork angle brackets over the aisles and between the trusses, and the roof is finished with tongue and groove boarding.