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Post mill established
A post mill stood west of Smeeton Westerby, close to Mill Lane.
Site overview
Smeeton Post Mill was a former post mill near Smeeton Westerby. The site lay about half a mile west of Smeeton and slightly south of Mill Lane, a local route whose name preserves the association with the former mill. The windmill was shown on nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey mapping and is recorded as having been blown down at about that period.
The site no longer survives as a standing windmill, but its position remains legible in the local place-name landscape and in historic mapping of the parish.
Map
Map markers and directions links are provided for location reference only and do not indicate public access or permission to enter a site.
No site photograph is currently available. Images will be added as field visits are carried out.
History
Smeeton Post Mill stood west of Smeeton Westerby, near the route known as Mill Lane. The mill was a post mill, the traditional timber form in which the whole mill body turned on a central post to face the wind. Local historical accounts place the windmill about half a mile west of Smeeton and a little south of Mill Lane. It appeared on nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey mapping, and later accounts record that it was blown down at about that period, reportedly with the miller inside.
The site represents one of the lost rural post mills of south Leicestershire. Unlike Kibworth Harcourt Mill to the north, no standing mill body or roundhouse survives at Smeeton. The historical identity of the site is preserved through the Mill Lane place-name, map evidence, and specialist mill records. Its known history is therefore concentrated on its mapped nineteenth-century presence, its post-mill type, and its disappearance from the landscape after collapse.
Timeline
1885
Windmill shown on mapping
The windmill was shown on nineteenth-century Ordnance Survey mapping near Smeeton Westerby.
1885
Mill blown down
The post mill was recorded as having been blown down at about the time it appeared on late nineteenth-century mapping.
Sources and records
Fleckney Walking Club article on Smeeton Post Mill
British History Online: Smeeton Westerby
Mills Archive catalogue entry
Windmill World Leicestershire gazetteer
British History Online: Smeeton Westerby
Mills Archive catalogue entry
Windmill World Leicestershire gazetteer