Description:Today's North Stafford Hotel faces Stoke station across Station Road and was originally called The Railway Hotel. The hotel and the station were designed and built together and the hotel opened for business in August 1849. It cost nearly £9,000 to build and "Families and Commercial Gentlemen will find every accommodation. Coffee, Commercial, Billiard, and Smoking Rooms. Hot, Cold, and Shower Baths" said an 1851 advert. The building is a fine example of Neo-Jacobean architecture, built of brick with black diamond decoration and with ornate windows and gables. It is a grade II listed building.
At the Unification of the City of Stoke on Trent, the first meeting of the new council on 31 March 1910 was held at the North Stafford Hotel, Stoke,
To the right and left of the hotel building are six houses on Winton Square, built in the same style as the hotel and station, to house senior railway officials and employees.