Most
of the estate was occupied as farm land and leased out to two tenant
farmers. One farmhouse located in the village on the north side of Etruria
Road was occupied for many years by several generations of the Hampton
family.
Each
year they advertised part of the land as a ley for cattle and horses.
The
farm supplied milk and other agricultural product to the villagers as well
as the occupiers of Etruria Hall. In the 1820s John Hampton the tenant of
Etruria Farm was also the landlord of the Etruria Inn. The farm was still in
the occupation of the family in 1841.
The
northern side of the estate was let out with Ridge House Farm. This was the
original farmhouse bought by Josiah Wedgwood in 1767. In 1824 when 47 acres
of this land was leased by the Wedgwood family for a racecourse, Ridge House
Farm became a much smaller holding and part of the buildings were occupied
by George Alcock, a fireman at the Wedgwood factory.
In
1841 the tenants at Ridge House were listed in the census as:
In
1848 Francis Wedgwood left Etruria Hall for the new house which he built at
Barlaston.
The
surroundings had become quite unpleasant with the development of the
ironworks between Mill Street and Cobridge Road by Earl
Granville 
. On the east side
of the Hall the Earl sank new coal and ironstone pits on the site of the
former racecourse after 1842 and the spoil heaps from these developments
were beginning to spread over the surrounding landscape.
In
1848 Etruria Hall and the surrounding land were leased to Earl Granville who
installed George Forrester his agent in the house. This was the beginning of
an association which lasted for 135 years between the Hall and Shelton
Ironworks .
In
the mid 1980s British Steel left
Etruria Hall, then used as offices, and the land in the area was reclaimed
for the National Garden Festival. The buildings surrounding the Hall were
demolished and the house restored to the appearance it had at the end of the
eighteenth century.
The
Hall is now part of the Moat House Hotel which was built next to it in the
1990s.
(1760 onwards)Etruria Hall in the first half of the nineteenth century.
