Stoke-on-Trent Minton tiles found under Jersey City Hall floor vinyl

The encaustic tiles are produced using a dye that goes all the way through, ensuring the pattern remains as the tiles are worn down

The uncovering of "stunning" floor tiles from Stoke-on-Trent at a New Jersey City Hall has prompted great surprise on social media.

The Minton tiles, dating back about 100 years, had been hidden under vinyl at the US city hall since the 1960s.

City mayor Steven Fulop said a team working to renovate the city hall had expected to find "garbage" under the flooring.

He said the city now hoped to restore them properly.

"We expected to find nothing underneath. We know the building was built in the 19th Century around 1850, perhaps a little bit later," Mr Fulop told BBC Radio Stoke.

"We couldn't have been happier to find them, we know those tiles have big roots in the UK."

He said there had been a project in the 1960s to modernise the building and it had led to the covering up of historical features including the flooring and light fittings.

Vinyl was laid in the 1960s covering the Minton tiles

Mr Fulop tweeted images of the tiles before and after they were cleaned and said he was "shocked" by the response.

The post has attracted almost 150,000 likes, tens of thousands of retweets and thousands of comments.

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One person wrote: "Who on earth looked at that beauty and said '…yeah let's slap some linoleum over this'?!"

Brad Cantanach said: "How did anyone in the 60s think it was a great idea to cover such a beautiful floor."

Another wrote: "This instantly switches the impression from "70s office frustration " to "beautiful landmark".

The before and after images of the tiles attracted a huge response on social media