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 positioned 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 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 displays 'General Market' in raised letters. This is set within a high segmental archway supported by stepped pilasters, topped with a dated panel in a patterned terracotta tympanum and 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 contains the public conveniences, featuring 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, some of which retain original details 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, supporting a stone cornice that extends over the shop fronts and culminates in a parapet with inset terracotta panels. A second entrance to the market hall is located towards the north, mirroring the main entrance with scrolled screens leading to paired iron gates and a flat stone lintel beneath a raised panelled parapet. A further shop, similar in detail 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, complemented by openwork angle brackets over the aisles and between the trusses, and a tongue and groove boarded roof.