Weymouth's oldest pub, a low-beamed Ringwood house on High West Street with a sunny beer garden behind. It bills itself as a dog-friendly pub and is a short walk from the harbour and the Rodwell Trail. Beer rather than food is the point.
These are the parts only the business can add. We check the dog policy and stamp the date — photos, prices and their own words are theirs to put in, and this listing is waiting for them.
The fire, the snug, the water bowl by the door.
A few dishes and what they cost, so people arrive knowing.
Can the dog actually sleep here, and what does it cost.
Which rooms, which times, whether the whippet gets a biscuit.
Claiming fills every box above, and lets you reply to reviews when they open. £15 a month, no contract, and it never changes the verdict — the stamp stays ours.
A 5.6-mile out and back east along the low clay cliffs of Weymouth Bay to the Smugglers Inn, about three hours with 220 metres of undulating climb on grass paths and a short stretch of shingle beach. Start at the Bowleaze Cove car park, pay and display, large but shared with the holiday park and prone to filling on hot afternoons; the number 5 bus from Weymouth stops on Preston Road ten minutes away. Bowleaze is one of the Weymouth stretches where dogs are allowed all year, the cliff path itself is unfenced and slipping in places, and the Smugglers Inn at the far end takes dogs in the bar and garden, which makes the turnaround point a proper halfway house.
A 2.6-mile hour-and-a-quarter town circuit round the working harbour, over the town bridge and up through the woodland walks of Nothe Gardens to the fort, with views along the Jurassic Coast from the gun batteries. All surfaced paths, steps and pavement, with one steady climb of 45 metres to the headland. Park in the Nothe or Melcombe Regis pay and display, both signed from the seafront, or leave the car out of town and take the harbour ferry across, which carries dogs. Leads are required in the gardens under the Dorset order and along the quayside, where the drop into the water is sheer, but this is the driest, most sheltered walk in Weymouth on a filthy day.
Tiny, cluttered old pub at Hope Square behind the harbour, all seafaring bric-a-brac and Dorset beer, with a big terrace where most people sit. Dogs are welcome across the whole terrace, where there are four water bowls, and there is a jar of dog biscuits on the bar; the interior is too small for them, though the staff are happy for a dog to be tied safely outside while you go in. Good seafood.
Nobody has written one for The Boot Inn. If you have been with the dog, you would be the first — and the first review is the one everybody reads.
One short email when we add places or a council changes its beach rules. No noise, easy out.
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