Leicestershire windmill to become ‘quality museum’

The site of a listed windmill in Leicestershire is scheduled for an upgrade that will see it gain a “quality museum and associated facilities”.

North West Leicestershire District Council has granted permission to Swannington Heritage Trust to extend the Neverson Centre, an existing building on the site of the Grade-II listed Hough Mill.

The trust said the centre, which is currently used as a museum, workshop and visitor centre, is a “fantastic building” but that it is not currently “sufficient as either a workshop or a museum”, Leicestershire Live reported.

Plans for renovation include the demolition of an onsite building, which will be replaced with an insulated metal-clad building to be used as a workshop and storage space, as well as containing visitor toilets and a meeting area for volunteers.

The existing museum building will also be extended to ensure it “provides a single, disabled accessible toilet and a further small museum display area”. 

The mill’s listed status means that efforts must be made to preserve both the structure and its setting. The trust said that the new building would be “minimally visible” when approaching the mill and would help to improve the site.

The mill was first opened to the public in 2000, after being refurbished with a grant from the National Heritage Lottery Fund. The trust now has three years to complete the proposed upgrades.