For value, quality and making us feel welcome, we love it here. We moved to the area in July 2017 and started visiting the Doghouse almost immediately, taking our (then) 4 month old baby with us. He’s now 13 months and the staff are as wonderful and engaging with him (and us) as they were then - making time to chat and play (pretty sure he’s a little bit in love with Emily and Jade in particular). The stairs at the entrance may not be ideal, but we’ve felt they are worth the slight inconvenience. The refurbishments have come on a great deal - we can’t wait to see the finished look. Being a (slightly stereotypical) northern last, on our first visit I asked for a Newcastle Brown Ale (which like most Southern pubs, they didn’t stock), but like a good local they offered to order it in - sure enough it was there the next week and has been pretty much every week since. We regularly end up ordering food (even when we’ve just nipped in for a quick drink) - whilst there is usually a bit of a wait, we’ve always found it to be worth it (my personal fave is the steak and ale shortcrust pie). Like most pubs, the experience you have is significantly impacted by the time/day you visit. We enjoy the relative hubbub of a friday/saturday evening- enough noise to have a private conversation, but not too much to force you to shout at each other the whole night. The locals are lovely and will have a bit of banter with us (and don’t cast judgmental looks our way if we’re still in with the baby past 9pm). We particularly enjoy it when the landlord’s in and has control of the play list. It may not be everybody’s cup of tea whilst the renovations are taking place, but we’ve enjoyed getting to know the staff and love that we’re getting to see the changes first hand. We’re proud to support our local and look forward to seeing it develop.

Been coming here for years every time staff and food excellent. I always feel like your visiting family that just happens to have a bar in their dining room lol. Always happy staff with good banter.