The George Hotel including stone-flagged area and surrounding walls and railings to the south and west

The George Hotel is a railway hotel built in 1849-1850 by William Wallen for the Ramsden Estate, with extensions dating to around 1850 and 1938, and subsequent alterations throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. It is constructed of buff sandstone with painted brick and a slate mansard roof.

The building is planned as a right-angled triangle around a roofed courtyard. It comprises a south-facing double-pile main range, a narrow north wing at the east end, and a single-depth north-west wing on the hypotenuse (the north-west wing is excluded from the listing). The hotel is prominently sited at the centre of Huddersfield Town Centre Conservation Area, overlooking St George's Square in front of the railway station and fronting onto John William Street.

The main range faces south and rises four storeys plus an attic within the mansard, with an unseen basement beneath. The eaves cornice is deeply moulded with console-shaped triglyphs between paterae alternating with nail-head panels. The ground floor is rusticated ashlar with ashlar above rising to the plinth. Moulded strings run above the ground and first floors. The angles feature moulded alternating quoins. The centre breaks forward slightly, flanked by short blind bays, with seven stacks of sash windows with glazing bars. The ground-floor windows have vermiculated quoins and keys. The first-floor windows feature moulded and lugged surrounds with sills on brackets, full entablatures, and triangular pediments to bays 2 and 6, while bay 4 has a segmental pediment on console-shaped scrolls. The second-floor windows have moulded and lugged surrounds and sills on brackets. The third-floor windows have moulded and lugged surrounds. The attic dormers contain casements with segmental pediments.

The east façade to John William Street has three bays of similar appearance with two ridge stacks, with a three-storey-plus-mansard extension to the right. The central first-floor window of the main range features a stone balcony supported on five deep moulded consoles, with a moulded handrail, panelled newels, and a balustrade composed of intersecting stone circles with a relief roundel depicting St George. The extension has a deeply moulded eaves cornice and extends across five bays, the outer two recessed, with rusticated quoins where the centre breaks forward. The outer bays have windows in plain surrounds. The inner bays feature three arched windows on the ground floor linked by a moulded impost, paired outer and single central segment-headed sashes with glazing bars in moulded and lugged surrounds with keystones on the first floor, and three windows with moulded and lugged surrounds on the second floor.

The west façade of the main range has three bays with one additional bay to the north, set slightly back, and is similar to the front façade but with plain surrounds to the ground-floor windows and long scrolled consoles supporting the sills of the first-floor windows. The north bay has a bow window at ground and first floors with a moulded cornice and parapet, three windows matching the others but without entablature at first floor, and one ground-floor window.

The rear elevation of the main range features arched stair windows with imposts and keystones, and plain surrounds to other windows. The rear courtyard-facing elevation of the north-east range matches that of the main range but is partly obscured at first floor by a painted-brick corridor.

The interior of the main range retains much of its original layout and decorative scheme. The first floor is of particular note, featuring higher ceilings, double-height skirting, moulded dado rails, deeply moulded cornicing, and double-filleted door-and-window architraves with panelled jambs and reveals, some of which remain concealed beneath later coverings. Some original six-panelled doors survive. The former Commercial Room has a decorative plaster ceiling, an elaborate cornice, and two pedimented doorcases. The upper floors preserve progressively simpler detailing, reflecting their historical status as servant floors.

The ground-floor former Charter Suite retains much of its 1870s or 1880s interior scheme. A storeroom adjacent to the suite preserves small areas of the original 1850 plaster cornice and wall decoration from a former corridor. The 1930s lobby survives well, featuring scagliola columns, decorative skirtings and cornicing in an Art Deco-influenced Classical style, a timber fire surround, and a curved display cabinet at the foot of the main stairs. The open-well main staircase has decorative cast-iron balusters and a timber handrail. Its lower flight is enclosed without a balustrade; the handrail of the return flight to the first floor curves upward from the nose of the bottom step in Art Deco style. Above the lower flight is a relief of St George. The basement retains vaulted ceilings and stone flag floors, with a bricked-up stone fireplace.

The ground-floor dining room of the north-east wing retains its 1930s decorative scheme matching that of the lobby, including Art Deco glazed doors. The hotel's upper floors preserve original joinery and cornicing above false ceilings, along with some original plasterwork in corridors. The attic retains original roof trusses supplemented by later steel members.

Subsidiary features include cast-iron railings with vase finials to the kerb of the stone-flagged area at the west end of the south front and the south end of the west front.