Dog Friendly Pubs in the East Midlands

If there is one pub in the region built around dogs rather than adapted for them, it is the Three Stags' Heads at Wardlow Mires, out on the A623 between Baslow and Chapel en le Frith.

It is about three hundred years old, it used to double as a farm, and it is two small rooms with stone flagged floors and low ceilings. CAMRA lists its interior as nationally important, which is a short list. An ancient range heats the bar and, more to the point, heats the house dogs, who are usually already in front of it. One of the back rooms has four large tables and a wall of dog pictures, mostly lurchers.

The detail that settles it: Abbeydale brew a beer called Black Lurcher at 8 per cent, made only for this pub, and it is named after one of the house dogs. There is a dog friendly garden as well.

The catch is the hours, and they catch people out constantly. It opens 5 to 11 on Thursday and Friday, and noon to 11 on Saturday, Sunday and bank holidays. That is the whole week. Turning up on a Tuesday afternoon after a long walk is a mistake you only make once.

The Packhorse at Little Longstone is the one most walkers name, and it earns it. Dogs are welcome in every part of the pub rather than just the bar, and water bowls are put down without being asked for. The building is late eighteenth century, converted from two miners' cottages built out of local White Peak limestone, and it is Grade II listed: three rooms with the bar in the middle, flagstone floors and three open fires, plus a covered and heated pergola outside for when the weather has beaten you. The kitchen works from Derbyshire producers and there is always something from Thornbridge, who brew a few miles away at Bakewell. It is small, so book. The walk is straight down into Monsal Dale and back, a couple of hours, and the Monsal Trail is on the doorstep if you want something flat and easy on an older dog.

The Old Poet's Corner at Ashover is the beer destination of the two. It is a mock Tudor building with open fires, candlelit tables and hop strewn beams, and it is the original home of Ashover Brew Co, founded on the premises in 2007. It is now a Titanic pub and runs ten hand pulls, normally four Titanic beers plus guests, alongside traditional ciders from the Ashover Cider Company, Belgian beers and country wines. It was national CAMRA Cider Pub of the Year in 2006 and has taken the local Pub of the Year four times. Dogs are welcome in the bar but not the restaurant, a common arrangement and worth knowing before you turn up hungry.

The George at Castleton has a roaring fire and sits at the foot of Mam Tor, which is the obvious walk. Get there early on a Sunday.

The Stable Bar at Monsal Head is fully dog friendly rather than dogs in the bar only, and the view from outside is one of the best in the Peak. It is also five minutes from the Packhorse, so the two make an easy pair.

The Robin Hood Inn near Baslow has three fires going in winter, home cooked food and cask ales, and sits at the trailhead for several routes across the moor. There is livestock on most of them, so keep the lead handy.

The Devonshire Arms at Pilsley and the Prince of Wales at Baslow both sit on or near the Chatsworth estate, which means good walking straight from the door and pubs long used to muddy paws coming back through it.

One of the estate pubs keeps a water barrel by the door labelled Mutts Nuts IPA, which tells you where the priorities lie.

The Wheatsheaf at Baslow is the bigger option for a group, and Baslow is the sensible base for this corner: three pubs, the estate, and the moor above it.

The Kean's Head in the Lace Market is the best single answer for a dog that does not want a crowd. It is a Castle Rock pub in a converted lace factory opposite St Mary's Church, Grade II listed, and it opened in 2004 as the first non smoking pub in Nottingham, which tells you something about how it is run. One room, one of the most respected beer ranges in the city, and over two hundred rums, gins and whiskies behind the bar. Dogs are welcome on a lead and water is put down. Food comes from a resident kitchen rather than a pub menu. It runs noon to 10 most days and noon to 11 on Friday and Saturday.

The Organ Grinder on Canning Circus is Blue Monkey's own pub, so the beer is looked after and dogs are part of the furniture. Its sister pub of the same name in Loughborough took the CAMRA Pub of the Year there in 2026, which gives you a fair idea of the standard.

The Vat and Fiddle is Castle Rock's brewery tap, three minutes' walk from Nottingham station and physically attached to the brewery. Dogs are welcome, but it is worth going in the daytime: it fills up in the evening when there is a match on or a band playing, which is not what most dogs want.

The Canalhouse is the one for a warm afternoon. It is Grade II listed, the canal runs into the building itself, and the real draw is the canalside beer garden, which is the largest bit of outdoor space of any of these.

The Bell Inn on the Market Square dates from around 1437 and is one of the oldest pubs in the city. Wood panelling, low rooms and pub classics, and it takes dogs.

The Wheatsheaf at Burton Joyce and the Ferry Inn on the riverside both do the same job as the city pubs with considerably more room outside, which on a Sunday is the whole argument.

The Green Dragon at Oxton, towards Southwell, has a big garden and staff who make a fuss of the dog.

Castle Rock is the name to watch across the county generally. They run a number of pubs in Nottingham and Leicestershire and they are consistent about dogs rather than leaving it to whoever is behind the bar, which is the difference between a pub you can plan around and one you cannot.

The Black Bull at Market Overton, a short drive from Rutland Water, mentions dogs several times on its own website and then follows through: treats at the bar, water bowls, and a chef who has been known to come out and talk to dog owners. The circular route round Rutland Water runs to just under twenty-five miles, so pick a section rather than the lot. The stretch from Whitwell to Barnsdale is the usual choice and is mostly flat.

The Anne of Cleves at Melton Mowbray has a large walled garden with enough shade to park a dog on a hot day, which is harder to find than it sounds.

Castle Rock runs several pubs across Leicestershire and Nottinghamshire that are reliably dog friendly, including one on The Rushes in Loughborough.

The Yews at Great Glen is a nineteenth century pub on the edge of the village with fields on the doorstep.

Most pubs that welcome dogs restrict them to the bar and garden rather than the dining room. That is not unfriendliness, it is usually a condition of their food hygiene arrangements, and it is worth checking when you book rather than finding out at the door. The Old Poet's Corner is explicit about it, and it is the standard arrangement rather than the exception.

Where a pub says dogs are welcome in all areas, as the Packhorse and the Stable Bar do, that is a deliberate statement and worth taking at face value.

Watch for guide dogs only, which reads as a welcome and is not one. The Barrel Inn at Bretton, the highest pub in Derbyshire and otherwise an obvious stop on any Peak District list, is guide dogs only inside for exactly this reason. Its outdoor tables are a different matter in summer.

Phone ahead on a Sunday. The pubs on this list are the ones everyone else has heard of too, and a busy Sunday lunch with no booking and a wet dog is nobody's idea of a good afternoon. The Packhorse and the Three Stags' Heads are both small enough that this matters.

Check the opening days, not just the hours. The Three Stags' Heads opens four days a week, and several Peak District pubs shut on Monday and Tuesday out of season. A pub that was open when the guide was written is not necessarily open when you get there.

Livestock is the other thing. Most of the walks that lead to these pubs cross grazing land at some point, and the signs asking for dogs on leads are there for a reason. The routes off Mam Tor and across the moor above Baslow both cross sheep ground.

Take a towel. Half of these pubs have flagstone floors and open fires and will not mind a wet dog at all, and the other half will mind rather more, and you will not know which is which until you are through the door.