In April 2000 The Trust opened to the public its Swannington Hough Mill which it had refurbished from a ruinous state with help from the National Heritage Lottery fund. Hough Windmill is now open to the public every Sunday from April until the end of September, between 2pm and 5pm.

A tower mill, built by Mr. Griffin at the end of the 18th century, on the boundary between Swannington and Thringstone, replaced an earlier post mill sited nearby, and was being operated in the mid 1800s by James Kerby, as a tenant of the Griffins. He paid a rent of £30 per annum for the mill, piggeries and shed but in 1877 the mill with house and land was put up for auction. It was purchased by John Hough, steward to the Beaumonts of Coleorton, for £1175 and it continued to be worked by James Kerby and then Walter Chester, who was the last man to work the mill commercially. The mill finally ceased operation in the early 20th century and then progressively fell into disrepair. It is said that some of its ironwork was removed in 1940 for the war effort and by the time the Trust purchased the site in 1994 all that remained of the listed building was a very badly weathered shell of the tower, with a few rotting floor beams and the last residues of the cap frame.

At least five windmills have at some time in the past operated on the high land at the north end of the village. The earlier ones were post mills, which were either destroyed by fire or dismantled for re-erection on new locations. The sites of several of these mills are known and well-known local milling families, the Griffins, the Chesters and the Kerbys, worked them. One of these mills was reportedly overturned in a gale in the early part of the 19th century, the man in charge being killed. It was then re-erected on a site nearby and, after operating for a while, was dismantled in 1895 on the death of its owner when parts of the timber and the stones were offered for sale.

Encouraged by the efforts of miller Nigel Moon and the expert advice of Consultant John Boucher, the Trust made plans to refurbish the structure by installing windows, doors, floors and a correctly fabricated cap and to install some "stone floor" machinery we were able to obtain from a derelict mill. The Committee decided that everything done should be, in effect, a stage of total restoration and should not hinder future work by a more affluent and more adventurous committee in time to come. A Mill sub-committee was appointed and was successful in obtaining a grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund of up to £70,883, which enabled the satisfactory completion to be made of that stage of the work. Interpretation panels have been added and two models of wind mills have been made by local craftsmen, a Post Mill and a Tower Mill. The Trust became very proud winners of Leicestershire County Council's Award for Independent Museums 2000, sponsored by the Leicester Mercury.