Etruria Pottery Works, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, 1965-1968. Josiah Wedgwood's Etruria Pottery Works during demolition, viewed from towpath of the Trent and Mersey Canal with the Round House in the foreground. Josiah Wedgwood opened his Etruria Works beside the Trent and Mersey Canal in 1769. A new factory was constructed at Barlaston in 1938 and production was gradually shifted away from Etruria. The Round House (built circa 1769), said to have been used for grinding raw materials, as a counting house, and as a stable, is now the only surviving structure.