We’d been talking about walking from home to IKEA since we “landed” in Sheffield a year ago.
Many take the official Five Weirs route along the Don, which gives you a glass of murky DIPA at St Mars of the Desert in Attercliffe if you time it right.
Mrs RM and I took the more challenging uphill Tinsley Canal route.
We’d already walked 2 miles before starting at Victoria Junction @ the Quays with a flat white and sausage roll, and wondering whether to just wait for the Dorothy Pax to open.
The Dorothy, which I’ve still yet to visit, is the only pub on this route till you get to Meadowhall.
Which also means it’s the only toilet on the route, so make sure you take people with you to provide a lookout if you need a “comfort break” as bushes are limited.
We walked for 90 minutes, Mrs RM taking the lead as I kept hanging back to take photos of the art, graffiti and industrial heritage and try to identify the ’80s pop being played on tinny radios in panel beating workshops (Spoiler : It’s almost certainly Red Light Spells Danger).
Hallam FC play on the west of Sheffield and think themselves superior to their League neighbours as their supporters are all 161 years old or talk like it, apparently.
The walk takes you between Attercliffe’s industry, the University playing grounds, and there’s a brush with Greenland (which still owes me a blog view on my world map of views).
It’s a very tranquil stroll, a bit muddy in places but there’s less rubbish than you’ll get in the canals north of Ancoats and it’s a great place to see the colours of Autumn.
At the half-way stage we entertained thoughts of branching off at Tinsley Marina towards Rotherham. There’s pubs there. But as you’ll have noticed, our enthusiasm was waning.
20 minutes after that last shot, I was back at Sheffield Station, heading somewhere really exciting.
retiredmartin 
Good job you didn’t do the “Five Weirs Walk”, now that is really dreary. Sounds like a country walk, but much of it is on main roads.
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I think I’ll do the bit of 5 Weirs to Attercliffe when I eventually get to the St Mars of the Desert Tap, but the prospect of ending up in Meadowhall fills me with horror.
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“Much” of the Five Weirs Walk is on roads because “much” of the footpath got washed away by floods! I did the walk five or six years ago when it was almost all on the river bank, and we came back along the canal towpath. I don’t think there was a lot of difference between the two stretches at that time.
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I walked a little section in Attercliffe and thought that was lovely.
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I used to regularly walk up the canal towpath home after a pubcrawl down the Uxbridge Road, from Ealing Broadway station to home when I lived there in the late 70s/early 80s.
Start at the Feathers (Bernie Inn), just a stride down from the station, then the 6 Bells, North Star (Taylor Walker, early 80s GBG) and a brief diversion down to the Red Lion (Fullers, near Ealing Studio, frequent GBG) and on into West Ealing (Anchor, Coach & Horses, Prince Arthur), taking in the Old Hat & Green Man (condemned/demolished while I still lived there, though it lived on in the memory, as Green Man Lane was testament that it had once existed), then march on into Hanwell for a swift one (beer, I mean!) in the King’s Arms (maybe?) and down the hill to the (Fullers) Viaduct, opposite Ealing Hospital. Still got time to bob into the White Hart, culminating in a Director’s in the Fox, at the confluence of the river Brent + Grand Union canal. A slow, careful stagger up the Hanwell flight of locks (6 – had to look it up, never been capable of counting, lol), with plenty of (essential!) opportunities to ‘water the flowers’ along the dark deserted towpath. Exit onto Windmill Lane at the (IKB-designed 3 bridges: road, over canal, over railway – only one other like it in the country I was always led to believe) & a quarter mile stumble home. Those were the days!
IIRC, none of the pubs were particularly salubrious (not that I was particularly judgemental in those days), quite the reverse, all catering for their down-market (lumpen proletariat?) local clientele – I wonder what became of them, now that the whole area has become extremely gentrified & is seriously expensive + populated by the effluent (stinking rich!)? Dubious as to whether many of the pubs exist, either – probably not a terrific loss, if truth be told.
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You had me at Bernie Inn (as they say). Sounds great !
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Well, I’m told that I enjoyed it ;-D not that it happened very often.
For a more pleasant drinking experience, a visit to Richmond, or Strand-on-the Green or Roehampton (the superior part of Wandswerf!) was required; lots of lovely Youngs pubs.
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