North Stafford Hotel, Winton Square

North Stafford Hotel, Stoke\| Buildings of Stoke-on-Trent


Buildings of Stoke-on-Trent	[ Web Site Index ]

click for more on
Winton Square

North Stafford Hotel
Winton Square, Station Road
Shelton, Stoke

The North Stafford Hotel (originally The Railway Hotel), designed in the Elizabethan & Jacobean style by H. A. Hunt of Parliament Street, London. The hotel was constructed as an integral part of the building of Stoke Station. Under the management of Henry Shirreff the hotel rapidly became the largest and most important in North Staffordshire.

STOKE-UPON-TRENT

HENRY ROBERT SHIRREFF respectfully informs the Inhabitants of the Potteries and Neighbourhood, that he has taken over the NORTH STAFFORDSHIRE HOTEL, Railway Station.
Families and Commercial Gentlemen will find every accommodation. Coffee, Commercial, Billiard, and Smoking Rooms. Hot, Cold, and Shower Baths.

Staffordshire Advertiser Newspaper 28 June 1851

"We have tried them all. The leading expensive sea-side establishments, where you can scarcely ring the bell without paying for the privilege; the old, almost forgotten, dingy rambling inn, that was great in coaching times; the flaunting, gas-blazing, French-polished, bustling terminus tavern; the small country-town, bow-windowed, old chambermaided, stone-flagged, tobacco-odoured family and commercial hotel and posting house; and we have found the same things to object to in most of them.
Not all. The North Staffordshire Hotel at Stoke Station is a model house for England."

Albert Smith - "The Month" July 1851

Winton Square 1928
Early motor cars park up outside the North Stafford Hotel in the early part of last century.

© The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery
Staffordshire Past Track
http://www.staffspasttrack.org.uk/copyright.asp

date	event
1847	"The Railway Hotel" built at a cost of £8,843 to the design of H.A. Hunt.
Aug 1849	John Cuff (first tenant) opened for business with a loan of £3,500 from the directors of the railway company to enable him to buy furniture and fit out the hotel.
1851	Henry Robert Shirreff (nephew of John Cuff), at the age of 23, took over the tenancy of the hotel. Shireff had already been responsible for the day to day running of the hotel as the manager. The hotel flourished - as shown in the number of live-in servants:- 1851: 7 / 1861: 27 / 1871: 36
early 1870's	Shirreff left to run the Palatine Hotel, Hunts Bank, Manchester
	The railway company let the hotel to the Patzer family from Germany; first to Charles Patzer and then to Frederick Patzer. The hotel continued to flourish under their management.
1893	Stoke station, and part of the North Stafford Hotel were first lit by electricity as early as 1893.
early 20th C	The Patzer family formed the "North Stafford Hotel Company" which bought the hotel from the railway company.
1910	The meeting-place of the council of new county borough of Stoke-on-Trent was, in 1910, a matter of some delicacy. Each of the six towns had its own town hall and the choice of one rather than another as the headquarters of the new council was complicated by feelings of local pride and sentiment. Therefore the first meeting of the council on 31 March 1910 was held at the North Stafford Hotel, Stoke, when it was decided that the council should meet at each town in turn.
after 1st WW	After the first World War the hotel was taken over and became part of the Trust House Forte group.
2007	Part of Britannia Hotels Ltd

North Stafford Hotel

"Stoke-on-Trent possesses one of the finest gateways in the country in Winton Square; step off the train in Stoke-on-Trent and you are met with one of the finest examples of Victorian urban planning you are likely to come across, and two great landmarks in Stoke-on-Trent Railway Station and the North Stafford Hotel, both of which are Grade II* Listed."

David Proudlove - Regeneration Manager for English Partnerships

The graves of the Patzer's - managers and later owners of the North Stafford Hotel
The graves of the Patzer's
- managers and later owners of the North Stafford Hotel
in the 1"st class" Church of England area of Hartshill Cemetery

"In loving Memory of
Christian Charles Frederick Robert Patzer"

the toilet facilities in a proto art nouveau style - heavily
decorated with local-produced tiles

Sources:
Victoria History of the County of Stafford, Vol VIII
Andrew Dobraszczyc notes
The Potteries Museum and Art Gallery

the North Stafford Hotel is a listed building