Winton Square
The Grade II* listed Stoke-on-Trent railway station, located on the square
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| Namesake | Winton's Wood |
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| Location | Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England |
| Postal code | ST4 2AD |
| Coordinates | 53°00′30″N 2°10′50″W / 53.0082°N 2.1805°WCoordinates: 53°00′30″N 2°10′50″W / 53.0082°N 2.1805°W |
| Construction | |
| Commissioned | 1846 |
| Completion | 1848 |
| Other | |
| Designer | Henry Arthur Hunt |
Winton Square in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England, houses Stoke-on-Trent railway station, the North Stafford Hotel, and several other historic structures. The square was built in 1848 for the North Staffordshire Railway, whose headquarters were in the station building, and is a significant example of neo-Jacobean architecture. Today, all the buildings and structures in the square are listed buildings and the square is a designated conservation area.
Prior to the construction of the railways, the land now occupied by Winton Square was known as Winton's Wood in Shelton, a previously independent town now part of Stoke-on-Trent. The area formed part of the glebe land attached to the nearby Church of St. Peter ad Vincula and was named for church rector John Winton. The land remained under the ownership of the church until it was purchased by The North Staffordshire Railway (NSR) in 1846 with the intention of building its principal station and headquarters there.
The square was designed by the NSR's London-based surveyor-architect, Henry Arthur Hunt, and built by John Jay in 1848 for the NSR, which had its headquarters on the upper floor of the station until 1923, when it was amalgamated into the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. The square is described by railway historian Gordon Biddle as "the only piece of town planning to have been deliberately undertaken by a railway company in order to set off its station", in comparison to continental Europe and the United States, where such town planning was more common. Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, in the Staffordshire edition of The Buildings of England, described it as "the finest piece of Victorian axial planning in the country". Pevsner also describes the station and the hotel as the best example of neo-Jacobean architecture in Staffordshire. The square was arguably the main focal point for the town of Stoke-upon-Trent prior to its amalgamation into the much larger city of Stoke-on-Trent in 1910. It is Stoke's only complete square with four blocks of structures, one on each side of the square.
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