Stoke-on-Trent railway station

Stoke-on-Trent railway station is a mainline railway station serving the city of Stoke-on-Trent. It lies on the Stafford to Manchester branch of the West Coast Main Line. The station also provides an interchange between various local services running through Cheshire, Staffordshire and Derbyshire.HistoryThe Victorian station buildings were opened on 9 October 1848. The other buildings located in Winton Square, including the North Stafford Hotel, were opened in June 1849. All these buildings were constructed by John Jay to the design of H.A. Hunt of London, using an architectural style referred to as "robust Jacobean manor-house". The station was built by the North Staffordshire Railway Company (NSR) and, until the amalgamation of 1923, housed the company's boardroom and its principal offices.Stoke-on-Trent has always been and still is the hub of North Staffordshire's passenger train service. The station also used to have links to, to via Newcastle-under-Lyme & and was the southern terminus of the Potteries Loop Line. All of these routes closed to passenger traffic in the 1950s & 1960s, though the line to Leek remained in use for sand & stone traffic to Caldon Low & Oakamoor quarries until the mid-1980s.DesignThe station is situated in Winton Square, which is described as Britain's only piece of major town planning undertaken by a railway company specifically to offset a station building. The station is a grade II* listed building, one of four listed buildings in the square—the North Stafford Hotel, directly opposite the station, is also grade II* listed while a statue of Josiah Wedgwood and a row of railway cottages either side of the square are grade II listed.