Centenary Riverside

Boston Park is Rotherham's first public park, just over eight hectares on the hill at the end of Boston Castle Grove off Moorgate, opened on 4 July 1876 to mark the centenary of American independence. The castle at the top is a hunting lodge of 1775 built for the Earl of Effingham and named for the Boston Tea Party, and it opens Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday from 11am to 3pm between April and September. The walk drops south out of the formal gardens into Canklow Woods, an ancient woodland of oak and birch on the valley side above the Rother, and climbs back up the far side. The park paths are surfaced; the woodland tracks are earth and get churned in winter.

Rotherham's main town park, a Victorian layout of avenues, bandstand lawns and mature limes on the rise between Clifton Lane and the town centre, with the museum in the old Clifton House at the top. This is the one place in the borough with a formally designated off-lead area, marked in blue on the park's own map, and it is also the one place where being off lead anywhere else will cost you money. Dogs are barred from the Watersplash water play area entirely and must be on a lead around the children's play areas, and only assistance dogs go inside the museum. Paths are tarmac and gently graded, so it walks in any weather, and there are waste bins right through the park.

A hotel on West Bawtry Road just off junction 33 of the M1, on the southern edge of Rotherham above the Don valley. It keeps a set of rooms specifically for guests with dogs at fifteen pounds per dog per night, and will put food bowls and waste bags in the room if you tell reception before you arrive. Dogs may use designated areas around the hotel including the open lobby, where there is table service, but they cannot come into every dining area and must stay in the room if you eat elsewhere. Ulley Country Park and Canklow Woods are both within four miles.