Hough Mill

Join us for Christmas at the Mill this afternoon from 2pm. The mill is looking beautiful and the mulled wine is warm! There is something for everyone!

We are really looking forward to Christmas at the Mill on Sunday! We now have space for an additional craft stall. Please drop us a message if you might like a table.

The event preparations are in full swing and the decorations in Hough Mill are looking beautiful. We think Santa will be very impressed!

We are so excited to see you all at Christmas at the Mill next week!!

Swannington Heritage Trust have an exciting raffle this Christmas to help raise funds for our ongoing maintenance. This includes Hough Mill and the Incline which have had significant funds spent on them over the last year to keep them open for you to enjoy.

The prizes are amazing and most have been donated by local businesses. We will be naming donors to thank them over the coming days. First prize is a gift hamper worth over £100 including Amazon and restaurant gift vouchers. We also have a voucher from our friends at Chilli n Spice in Swannington to win!

Please drop us a message if you would like to buy some tickets. They are £1 each or £5 for a book of 5 tickets. The raffle will be drawn at Christmas at the Mill on 3rd December. Your support is really appreciated.

Swannington Heritage Trust | Swannington Heritage Trust Swannington Heritage Trust coal mining railways Hough windmill

Meanwhile, another stubbornly creative and amazing volunteer has designed and built this fabulous cover for the 18th Century and very rare Newcomen Boiler. This cover will provide protection while allowing ventilation around the boiler to help prevent degradation.

One of our more stubborn volunteers has persisted to get the key out of the notice board in our Califat car park. So many of you have tried…!

We are incredibly proud and excited to let you know that Swannington Heritage Trust has been given the King’s Award for Voluntary Service as part of the King’s birthday honours list. The award is known as the MBE for voluntary groups. This recognises the huge amount of love and effort that our volunteers have put into making the Trust such a special organisation. Thank you to every volunteer - you are amazing!!

Look forward to much more celebration over the coming days! We are just letting the news sink in for now!

Our land management volunteers have cordoned off a large boggy area on the noticeboard path in the Gorse Field. So please use one of many alternative routes for your walk for the next week or two.

The grass paths are very wet after all the rain, in some areas we have mown alternative routes, please use them to minimise grass being trampled into mud.

We are really pleased to let you know that the fantail is back in place at Hough Mill. This means the mill cap can now rotate the sails into the wind. We are excited and relieved! Thanks to Engineering Design Supplies for all your help!

Our display of Swannington public houses had a lot of visitors at the Whitwick Historical Group's 40th anniversary Pubs and Clubs exhibition. Also gathered lots of information about Swannington people and places so a very worthwhile day.

Swannington Heritage Trust needs your help!

Thank you to the wonderful children from Oak Class at Swannington CE Primary School. They have created lovely thank you notes to our mining fairies for keeping our local miners safe. They came up to see Hough Mill and to hang their notes in our fairy woodland area to make sure the mining fairies know how special they are!

Get in touch if your school would like to get involved with local history - we have had such fun with Swannington!

All help needed! Everyone is invited to help us rake in the grass this Saturday at 10am. Kids are very welcome. Bring sturdy shoes and a rake if you have one. We will provide tea and biscuits! This is a really important part of us maintaining our Gorse Field site as a rare acid grass heathland.

Although it looks as if we have taken out masses of trees, it is only a carefully selected 25 (out of 700) hawthorns and 30 (out of 400) elders. There are still more than 1,200 trees and shrubs in the Gorse Field.

Visitors to the Gorse Field near Hough Mill will notice a few changes over the coming weeks. In line with specialist advice from Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust, in order to help restore the acid grass heathland habitat we are reducing the scrub and small tree cover and digging out the stumps. A tractor will be helping with the annual grass mow. We then need to rake in all the grass clippings to impoverish the soil which is a key part of the restoration. Join us on the 7th October at 10am. Many hands make light work and there will be plenty of tea and biscuits and a great community spirit!

The sun is now shining and the show will go on!

This year children can winch their brave toys to the top of the mill. We are very excited to see what fabulous characters come to see us!

Hough Mill is open today and next Sunday for Teddy at the mill. We then close for the winter season. Come and have a look at the freshly painted sails and mill cap. The metal work for the fantail is back and you can have a close look at it’s workings. We are here til 5pm today!

A busy morning on Clay Heath in the Gorse Field, wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow full of grass cuttings removed. This will impoverish the soil to encourage acid loving wildflowers. Also prepares the field for Take Teddy To The Mill car parking on Sunday 24th September.

Can you help with these one off sessions? Every little bit of support will make a huge difference to the Trust.

We are hosting a display at the Snibston mining fayre at Snibston Discovery Centre. There are some fascinating displays - come and have a look!

As a tractor with mower cut the grass on Clay Heath in the Gorse Field on Wednesday, there was lots of raking up the cut grass on Friday.

The former Anchor Inn on the corner of Anchor Lane and Loughborough Road is one of our Hello Heritage boards. Read more on https://swannington-heritage.co.uk/swannington-history/public-houses/anchor-inn/

Another exciting week at Hough Mill as work has started on preserving the mill cap and repainting the sails. It is all go at the moment!

We have had an exciting week at Hough Mill with a drilling rig and engineers completing a mining survey. Hopefully this will take us one step closer to being able to build our new shed building!

Our volunteers have been erecting the Hello Heritage information boards on St George's Hill and Loughborough Road. See https://swannington-heritage.co.uk/visits-events/hello-heritage/ The boards will remain until Sunday 17th September.

Thank you to Lucyspacepose for another stunning image of Hough Mill, Swannington.