Teddesley Hall was a large Georgian English country house located close to Penkridge in Staffordshire, now demolished. It was the main seat firstly of the Littleton Baronets and then of the Barons Hatherton. The site today retains considerable traces of the hall, gardens and other buildings, while the former home farm remains a working farm. Origins and history Teddesley Hall was built by Sir Edward Littleton, the fourth to hold the baronetcy, who succeeded in 1742, while still a minor. The Littletons had risen steadily in importance as landowners in the Penkridge area over the course of more than two centuries. Their seat since the early 16th century had been Pillaton Hall, a short distance east of the village, the site of which they had inherited from the Wynnesbury family. They had owned Teddesley Hay, an area of 2,625 acres to the north-east of Penkridge, since the mid-16th century. However, the lords of Pillaton had held it as farmers or lessees for at least three centuries before that. The Hay had been formerly part of the royal forest of Cank or Cannock Chase. It was very sparsely inhabited: in 1666 the assessment for the hearth tax found only three eligible to pay it in the Hay and it had only 59 inhabitants as late as 1811. The fourth baronet completed his family's dominance in the area by buying the manor of Penkridge from the Francis Greville, Lord Brooke in 1749. It seems that he decided to build a new seat for the family at Teddesley around that time, as he moved into the Hall in 1754, before it was entirely completed. It was built on the site of Teddesley Lodge, a smaller house that had earlier accommodated junior members of the Littleton family. It was said that the finance came from large hoards of coins discovered behind panels at Pillaton Hall, which raised the then vast sum of £15,000 on sale. Sir Edward developed a large park surrounding the Hall. It became noted for the quality of its cattle, and its reputation for agricultural innovation was enhanced by his heir, Edward Walhouse, a great-nephew who changed his name to Littleton in order to succeed to the estates, but not the baronetcy, in 1812. He was to become the first Baron Hatherton in 1835. Hatherton drained and developed a large area of land to expand the farm into a holding of