WORKERS restoring a railway station lounge have uncovered Victorian wall tiles worth an estimated £3.5m beneath layers of paint and concrete.

The find has been hailed as the best Burmantofts tiling outside a museum.

The panels were installed in 1895 under the direction of architect John Dobson when he designed the first class lounge.

Because Burmantofts tiles, made in Leeds, were hand-made and expensive, they were rarely used in public buildings.

But the first class lounge at Newcastle station was intended to be the most spectacular room at any station in the country.

However, in the 1940s, the room was converted into police cells and the work was obscured by reinforced concrete and steel mesh.

John Sanderson had seen pictures of the lounge, which was called The Centurion, and hoped he could recreate some of its splendour. But when his workers started pulling down the cells they discovered the original tiles underneath, 90 per cent of them still intact.

The Railway Heritage Trust has put £250,000 into the restoration of the building, which will be reopened as The Centurion bistro and delicatessen later this year