Dog-friendly Boot

A walkers inn at the entrance to Boot, with a bar known for its whisky shelf and the Eskdale Mill path over the bridge. Dogs are allowed in the bar and the snug only: they are not allowed in the bedrooms at all, which is the opposite of most Eskdale inns and worth knowing before you book.

The third of Boot's three pubs, set back off the lane above Dalegarth station with a large beer garden looking up the Eskdale valley and six changing cask ales, most of them Robinson's with Cumbrian guests. The inn's own site confirms in a reply from the licensee that all of its rooms are dog friendly, which puts eight or nine bedrooms into play in a valley where beds are scarce at weekends. Nothing is published about the bar, conservatory or snug, so ask when you arrive rather than assume. It is five minutes' walk from the terminus of the Ravenglass and Eskdale Railway.

The last inn before Hardknott Pass, at the head of Eskdale, with its own bar, cafe and a bragging list for those who have driven the pass. Dogs are welcome whether you are calling in for a drink or staying, and can share a bedroom for five pounds a night; there are dog B&B and dog dinner packages, and the kitchen will lay breakfast in a private room so your dog can join you.

The refurbished cafe at Dalegarth for Boot, at the Eskdale end of the fifteen-inch gauge line, serving lunches, snacks and ice cream to walkers coming off Stanley Ghyll and the Esk path. Dogs are allowed on the lower floor but not upstairs, where Wakefield's afternoon tea room is, so the ground-floor seating and the platform are the places to sit. There are toilets and a large pay-and-display car park here, which makes it the practical starting point for most Eskdale walks. Water bowls are set out around the station.

Five miles there and back on the corpse road that Wasdale Head once used to carry its dead over the fell to St Catherine's in Eskdale, before it had a churchyard of its own. The track leaves Boot behind Eskdale Mill, climbs steadily up the west side of Whillan Beck onto Eskdale Moor and drops to Burnmoor Tarn at 252 metres, a big shallow sheet of water with Illgill Head behind it and the ruin of Burnmoor Lodge on the shore. The going is a broad grass and stone track the whole way, which makes it one of the few Eskdale fell routes a dog can do without scrambling. It is all grazed common with Herdwicks on it and the National Trust asks for a short lead throughout Eskdale.

A mile and a bit there and back, climbing 130 metres from the little car park at Jubilee Bridge at the foot of Hardknott Pass to the walls of Mediobogdum, the Roman fort that sits on a shelf 250 metres above the Esk with the whole of Eskdale laid out west of it. The path is grass and stone and steep in places but short, and you can walk the full circuit of the fort walls, the headquarters building and the commandant's house before dropping back. There is no shelter and no water on the way up. It is grazed fell, with Herdwicks around the fort itself, and the National Trust asks for a short lead throughout Eskdale.

Under three miles and an hour and a half, 110 metres of climb, into the deep mossy ravine below Stanley Ghyll to one of the tallest waterfalls in the Lakes. It starts at Dalegarth station, the terminus of the Ravenglass and Eskdale narrow-gauge railway, which carries dogs for a small fare and has a paid car park of about 60 spaces beside it. The lower gorge is enclosed, shaded and full of running water for a dog to drink from, but the path climbs on stone steps and roots with the ravine unfenced in places, so a short lead once you are past the second footbridge, and the Dalegarth fields at the start are grazed with lambs from March.

Three and a half miles and an hour and forty minutes on the flat, along the Esk from Dalegarth to the packhorse arch at Doctor Bridge, past the Woolpack Inn and back on the other bank through Boot. Start at Dalegarth station, where the paid car park is the only real option in the valley bottom - the Boot village spaces are for residents and the Woolpack's are for customers. The Esk is the whole point for a dog: long gravel-bottomed pools deep enough to swim, shade from the alders, and both pubs on the route take dogs in the bar. The valley is grazed throughout with sheep and some cattle, and Doctor Bridge is narrow with no parapet on the upstream side.

Seven converted farm buildings around a yard at Boot, on a working farm beside the Whillan Beck, with the most detailed published dog policy anywhere in Eskdale. Six of the seven take dogs but the number varies by cottage: two large or three small at the Farmhouse, two at Wastwater, two at Scafell only if they sleep in crates, one large or two small at Hardknott, Wrynose and Stanley Ghyll, and one small dog at Whillan Beck. There is an enclosed shared paddock and a garden by the beck, though dogs are not allowed off the lead in the shared gardens. No dog under a year old is accepted at all.

A four-bedroom National Trust stone cottage sleeping seven, standing on the edge of Eskdale campsite at the foot of the Hardknott pass. Two dogs are welcome. It was a farm labourer's cottage and keeps a Rayburn in the kitchen, which matters when a dog comes back off Harter Fell soaked. The Esk stepping stones, Stanley Ghyll Force and the corpse road to Burnmoor Tarn all start within walking distance, and Boot's three pubs are about fifteen minutes down the lane.

The National Trust's 110-pitch site in eight acres of meadow below the crags at Boot, open from mid-February to the end of December and taking tents, campervans and motorhomes but not caravans. Two dogs are allowed per pitch. Of the accommodation on site only the Basic Pods take dogs; the Standard Pods and the single bell tent do not, which is the detail that catches people out when they book. Blea Tarn and Burnmoor Tarn are both under an hour's walk, and the Esk stepping stones and Stanley Ghyll Force go from the gate.

A bed and breakfast in a stone house below Stanley Ghyll, five minutes from Dalegarth station and the path to the waterfall. Dogs stay for five pounds each a night and are allowed in the first-floor bedrooms and in the guest lounges, which is more generous than most of the valley, and the house will provide a dog bed and dog breakfasts and dinners for a small extra charge. Rates include a full English breakfast and use of an open larder, and there is private parking. The ground-floor rooms are not offered to dog owners.

A small group of self-catering chalets in the woods at Boot, a few minutes from Dalegarth station and the three Eskdale pubs. Only one of them, Larch, takes a dog, and only one dog, described on the owners' own site as needing to be very well behaved and house trained. That single sentence is the whole published policy, so book Larch specifically rather than assuming any chalet will do. It is quiet, wooded and level, which suits an older dog better than the farm yards further up the valley.

The youth hostel a mile east of Boot below Hardknott, with a campsite and Landpods in the grounds as well as hostel rooms. The dog rules here are unusually specific and worth reading before you book: dogs are not allowed in the hostel bedrooms at all, but they can stay in the Landpods for ten pounds a dog a night, and a Landpod booking also lets a dog into the hostel's public rooms except the kitchens. Book the whole building on Exclusive Hire and you can bring up to four dogs, still not in the bedrooms or on the furniture. Assistance dogs are welcome throughout if you tell them at the time of booking.