The Damhouse, Sheffield

Official site of The Dam House - www.damhousesheffield.co.uk

A hard-to-find pub and restaurant that could conceivably form part of a crawl from the city centre up to Broom Hill. Tucked away beside some five-a-side football pitches at the west end of Crookes Valley Park, not many people would know it was there until seeing the large illuminated sign at the side of the little-frequented one way street of Mushroom Lane. The view across the park is pleasant enough, and there are two other parks within a stone's throw, so this might be a good place to come after a day out with the family on the green edge of Sheffield city centre. It's only a short walk from my house, so I've long known how to find it, but only tonight found sufficient motivation to make my first visit. At weekends there seems, from a distance, to be a sort of family-dining-out type of crowd, and the sight of two highchairs waiting just inside the front door for appropriately sized customers reinforced this impression. At 9pm this evening, though, there was a different crowd: mostly still wearing the football shirts and shorts they'd presumably also worn to play football on the nearby pitches. Or do they shower and then change into different football kit for the post-match beer? The room has a sports bar's ambiance, with hard surfaces everywhere (plain walls, tiled or wooden floors), muted TVs showing Sky Sports News and anonymous music playing in the background. The lengthy bar has a multiplicity of lager and smooth fonts, but half way along there are three hand pumps, one with the pump clip reversed, one naked and the third displaying Wentworth Lemonale, a strange brew of malted barley and real lemons, apparently. There's a board outside advertising some outstanding pizza deals, but I wasn't interested in food and neither were the ex-footballers. There are much better pubs that are far easier to find within a short distance.

Official site of The Dam House - www.damhousesheffield.co.uk