Northamptonshire’s pub coverage is good via CAMRA’s own “Dog Friendly” tags, spread right across the county from Northampton town to its smallest villages. Cafés and restaurants are much thinner, with only one genuinely strong lead in the whole county.
Verified pubs (CAMRA “Dog Friendly” tag)
Northampton: Gardeners Arms, Britannia, Road to Morocco (bar only), Lamplighter, and the Artichoke in nearby Moulton (dogs in bar and part of the dining area). Kettering: Wayfarers, Beeswing, Shire Horse. Wellingborough: Cannon, Miller, and the Nags Head in nearby Wollaston. Rushden: Welcome Inn. Corby: a separate, unrelated Shire Horse on Willowbrook Road — two different pubs with the same name in this batch, in Kettering and Corby, don’t mix them up. Towcester: Watling Street Village. Daventry: Lion. Brackley: Greyhound and Plough Pub & Kitchen. Ashton, near Oundle: Chequered Skipper, confirmed via the pub’s own site — note its postcode is in the Peterborough PE8 area, but the village itself is firmly within Northamptonshire.
Stoke Bruerne’s two canalside pubs
This small canal village near Towcester has two separate dog-friendly pubs, easy to conflate into one: the Boat Inn, CAMRA-confirmed, and the Navigation, confirmed via its own business page (“dogs welcome in the bar and beer garden”). Also worth a mention with lighter sourcing: the Narrow Boat (Weedon), Wharf Inn (Welford), Admiral Nelson (Braunston) and Red Lion (Crick) all appear on a 2019 local lifestyle-site list but weren’t independently confirmed on CAMRA in this pass — treat as secondary-sourced leads.
Cafés and restaurants: one strong lead, one moderate
The best find in the whole county is the Farmhouse Restaurant at Chester House Estate, Irchester near Wellingborough — a genuinely first-party-confirmed dog-friendly venue with its own indoor Dog Room, a “Dog’s Dinner” menu and water bowls. The 1867, at the Heart of the Shires Shopping Village near Weedon, is corroborated by two separate directories, though we couldn’t get the venue’s own site to confirm its dog policy explicitly, so treat it as moderately rather than fully confirmed. Rushden Lakes has several chain cafés and restaurants reported dog-friendly in a local tourism piece, but we didn’t verify each individually, so treat that as a lead rather than a confirmed fact.
Closed venues excluded, and genuine gaps
We caught and excluded one confirmed closure via CAMRA’s own live page: the Edge Of Town, Northampton. Beyond pubs, café/restaurant coverage is a genuine zero in Oundle, Towcester, Brackley, Rushden, Corby and Daventry town centres — not a research shortfall, just thin ground outside the two leads named above.
A busy pub on a weekend, full of new smells and other dogs, takes some settling into for a nervier dog. A calming bite before you set off can help take the edge off. If the anxiety runs deeper than a new environment, that’s a conversation for your vet.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is there a dog café in Northamptonshire?
Yes — the Farmhouse Restaurant at Chester House Estate, Irchester, has a dedicated indoor Dog Room and its own dog menu, the strongest café find in the county.
Are there two “Shire Horse” pubs in this list?
Yes — one in Kettering on Newland Street, and a separate, unrelated one in Corby on Willowbrook Road.
Is there a dog-friendly café in Oundle?
We couldn’t confirm one in the town itself — a genuine gap for now.
For everything else dog-related in Northamptonshire, see our Dog Services in Northamptonshire hub — and if you need someone else to do the walking, our guide to dog walkers in Northamptonshire covers what we found.
Written by Georgiana & Figo, who has strong opinions about which pub gardens have the best scraps.
