Dog-friendly Sheffield

A brewpub on Cemetery Road just south of the city centre, with the working brewhouse visible down the stairs and five of its own ales on the hand pumps. The split is stated clearly on its own site: the bar is the room that welcomes drinkers, diners and dogs alike, while the dining room next door is set up as a quieter, more formal space. So a dog eats in the bar. Bar snacks run through the day and the full seasonal menu is served at proper mealtimes. Sheffield General Cemetery, which is a decent short walk, is directly across the road.

A small Irish-owned free house on Trippet Lane in the middle of Sheffield, five minutes from the Cathedral tram stop, describing itself on its own site as cosy and dog friendly. Sheffield Central CAMRA Pub of the Year 2025, and one of only a handful of pubs in the city pouring Beamish, Guinness and Murphy's alongside cask ales, craft beer and a long list of Irish whiskeys. It is genuinely small, so a large dog on a Friday night will be in the way; a weekday afternoon suits it far better. Street parking only.

A large Thornbridge pub on the corner of Greystones Road at Banner Cross, best known for the Backroom music venue attached to it and for being one of the few pubs on this side of the city with its own car park. The statement on its own site is as short as it gets: dogs and children are welcome. It sits a few minutes from Bingham Park and the top of the Porter Valley, so it works as the finish of an Endcliffe to Forge Dam walk if you come back along Ecclesall Road South. Buses 6 and 82 stop outside; anything up Ecclesall Road leaves you a short climb.

Abbeydale Brewery's pub on Fulwood Road at Nether Green, twelve real ales on and twenty-five draught lines in total, with a seasonal kitchen serving noon to nine most days. The brewery's own account of the place says it became dog friendly the week it took over in December 2005, after the founders sat outside counting the dog walkers going past, and it has been ever since. The beer garden is large with covered sections for rain. It is five minutes' walk from the Porter Valley path at Whiteley Woods, which is why the dog traffic was there in the first place.

A True North pub on Mowbray Street where Kelham Island meets the River Don, with a big terraced beer garden dropping towards the water and a fire indoors for the winter. Its own site says dog treats are kept behind the bar, which is as clear a signal as a Sheffield city pub gives. Pies, Sunday roasts and street-food plates, open seven days for walk-ins. It sits directly on the Five Weirs Walk, so it works as a stop on a river route rather than a destination in itself, and there are half a dozen other Kelham pubs within five minutes.

An Ember Inns pub on Millhouses Lane with a spacious beer garden and free parking on site, which is the practical reason to use it: Millhouses Park is at the bottom of the road and Ecclesall Woods is a ten minute drive. Its own page states it is a dog friendly establishment. The food is fixed-price lunch and dinner menus with vegetarian, vegan and Sunday options, and it sits on a local ale trail so the cask range is better than the format suggests. Reach it from Abbeydale Road via Springfield Road.

The restored Edwardian refreshment room on platform 1B of Sheffield station, with the Tapped Brew Co microbrewery working in the old First Class Dining Room next door and a Grade II listed barrel-vaulted ceiling rebuilt from moulds of the original. Its own site states plainly that it is dog friendly, and that under-18s are welcome until 8pm. It is the most useful pub in the city for anyone arriving with a dog by train, since you walk off the platform straight into it. There is no garden and no outside space, so a wet dog goes indoors or not at all.

A working farm run as an education charity off Whirlow Lane on the Sheffield side of the Limb Valley, with a cafe in the converted barn that its own site states is dog friendly. Breakfasts, sandwiches, changing specials, cakes and deli items, open Wednesday to Sunday nine until four and closed Monday and Tuesday. Table requests go through a form rather than a booking system. The farm sits between Ecclesall Woods and Whirlow Brook Park, so it fits into a walk from either; the trust publishes nothing about dogs in the animal areas, so treat the cafe as the part that is confirmed.

The largest ancient semi-natural woodland in South Yorkshire, dominated by oak and birch, with more than fifteen kilometres of public footpaths and no admission charge at any hour. The Woodland Discovery Centre off Abbey Lane has toilets in the car park as well as inside, and the Woodland Coffee Stop does hot drinks and light lunches; the Abbeydale Miniature Railway runs in the same clearing. This is council land, so the city's Responsible Dog Walking Code of Conduct applies rather than any order: dogs in sight and under control, on a lead if recall is unreliable, short leads from March to August on ecologically sensitive ground, and out of the streams. The paths are wide and well used, and the woods drain reasonably well but the lower sections by the Limb Brook stay muddy through winter.

Sheffield's largest park at over two hundred acres, spread across the ridge between Norton Lees and Woodseats, and unusual for a city park in being mostly grazing pasture and woodland rather than mown grass. Streams run through the bottom of the valleys and there are ponds near the Cobnar Road end. Graves Park Animal Farm sits in the middle of it with rare breed cattle, sheep, pigs and poultry in fenced paddocks, and the council's own dog code asks you to avoid disturbing grazing animals and give them space, which here means a lead anywhere near the farm fields. Paths are a mix of tarmac and dirt and there is a cafe, toilets and free parking at several entrances.

The Rivelin runs down a wooded valley from the dams at Rails to Malin Bridge, and the trail beside it passes twenty-odd former mill dams, goits and wheel pits from the cutlery trade, most of them now still ponds full of ducks. This is council land, so the city's Responsible Dog Walking Code of Conduct is what governs it: dogs in sight and under control, on a lead if recall is not reliable, short leads from March to August on the sensitive stretches, out of the water and on the paths. The river is shallow and easy to get into for most of the length, which is exactly why the code asks you not to. Rivelin Park Cafe, the water play area and the toilets are all at the Malin Bridge end.

A strip of green squeezed between the River Don, the railway and Attercliffe Road, reclaimed from post-industrial ground and now a Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust reserve on the line of the Five Weirs Walk. It is the useful bit of green in an otherwise hard part of the city: the Don runs fast beside it, kingfishers and grey wagtails work the weirs, and the surfaced riverside path carries on west into the city centre and east towards Meadowhall. The Trust's rule for the reserve is dogs on a lead. The river bank is steep and unfenced in stretches and the path is shared with commuting cyclists.

Two and three quarter miles of level towpath from Victoria Quays at the back of the city centre out through Attercliffe to Tinsley Marina, following the canal that opened in 1819 and the steel works that grew up along it. The Canal and River Trust's own route runs past art trail pieces, lock gates and the Bacon Lane and Cadman Street bridges, and the surface is made up all the way, so it works in any weather and with a buggy. The Trust does not require a lead but does require dogs under close control and picked up after, and the unfenced edge, the locks and the cyclists mean most people clip on anyway. It is a linear walk: the tram from Tinsley back into town saves the return leg.

The best-known dog walk in Sheffield and one of the easiest to reach, running two miles up the Porter Brook from Endcliffe Park at Hunter's Bar through Bingham Park, Whiteley Woods and Shepherd Wheel to the dam and cafe at Forge Dam. The brook is shallow, stony and accessible at dozens of points, the paths are surfaced almost throughout and there are cafes at both ends. It is all council land under the city's Responsible Dog Walking Code of Conduct, which asks for dogs out of the waterways as well as in sight and under control, and short leads from March to August on the sensitive stretches. Playgrounds at Endcliffe and Forge Dam are fenced. Return the same way, or drop onto Rustlings Road for a road finish.

A converted grammar school on Leopold Square in the middle of Sheffield, five minutes from the station and the tram, and the only central hotel here with a published dog policy. The pet-friendly rooms are all on the lower ground floor with a door straight out to the courtyard, which matters at six in the morning in a city-centre hotel. Each dog stay includes a bed with washable covers, food and water bowls, treats, a toy and poo bags. Dogs are barred from the breakfast room, so breakfast is either in the bedroom or in the ground floor bar, and the hotel asks that dogs are on a lead anywhere in the public parts of the building and not left alone in the room for long.

A Victorian hall in twelve acres of its own grounds off Kenwood Road in Nether Edge, with a lake, woodland paths and lawns, ten minutes from the city centre and twenty from the Porter Valley. A set number of bedrooms are designated dog friendly and come with a bed, towels, a water bowl and treats waiting on arrival, and reception keeps a pit stop stocked with treats, water and poo bags. Dogs may go in the bar, on the alfresco terrace and anywhere in the grounds, but not in the Gallery Restaurant, so breakfast and dinner with the dog means eating in the bar. The hotel warns that some of the paths through the grounds are uneven and asks that dogs are kept away from the lake and the ducks.

Nineteen acres of Grade II listed gardens off Clarkehouse Road, laid out in 1836, with the restored Paxton glass pavilions, a bear pit and around eighteen distinct garden areas. Entry is free. The Sheffield Botanical Gardens Trust publishes a short list of garden guidelines and the first line of it is that dogs must be kept on leads, so this is a lead-on visit throughout, not a place to let one off among the borders. Ball games, cycling and skateboarding are all prohibited too. There is no visitor car park apart from disabled spaces at the Thompson Road entrance, so come on foot or by bus from Ecclesall Road.