SYSTON WINDMILL

According to William the Conqueror’s ‘Domesday Book’ of 1086, in the entry of Syston a mill is mentioned, this was probably a water mill.
There appears to have been a windmill in Syston from at least the early 17th century, as there is an entry in the Syston local parish register dated 1606, ‘that grinding was so scant by wind and water that at the feast of St Luke, 18th October, people came from Hinckley to Syston to grind their corn’. But whether that windmill was on the same site of the last windmill in Syston is not known.
The mill was situated at the end of a small track near to the Midland Railway Pub on Melton Road and was probably built in the 1740s, the sails were each 33 feet long and consisted of two common sails and two spring sails and a Mr Edward Cooper was the miller from 1895 to 1908, unfortunately it was blown down in a gale on 14th February 1910.
The Leicester Daily Mercury of 16th February 1910 quoted “that the windmill situated close to the station at Syston, was completely blown over during the storms in the early hours of Tuesday morning and now lies practically splintered to
matchwood”. The paper also reported “that the Mill up to a few months ago was about the only windmill in working order in the northern part of the county and Systonians will regret the destruction of the mill which was one of the landmarks in the district”.
Sadly the windmill was too severly damaged to be rebuilt and was never replaced.