Dog-friendly Bowness

A Robinsons house on Queens Square in the middle of Bowness, a couple of minutes back from the bay and open from 11am every day, later than most on Fridays and Saturdays. The brewery's own page for the pub lists it as dog friendly. It is a straightforward town local rather than a destination dining room, which is why it works when the lakeside places are full of coach parties. Handy at the end of the promenade and Cockshott Point circuit.

A pub with rooms above the bay at Bowness, with a beer garden that looks across Windermere to the Langdale Pikes. Dogs use the designated dog-friendly areas of the pub, restaurant and garden, and stay in selected bedrooms for a nightly supplement.

A Greene King pub on Lake Road in Bowness, a minute up from the bay and open 11am to 11pm with food served to 9pm. The chain lists dog friendly among the pub's facilities and publishes the same house rules across its estate: a lead indoors and out, dogs off the furniture, and the welcome at the manager's discretion. There is a beer garden, which matters here because the inside fills quickly with coach trade in season. It is the closest pub with a garden to the Glebe and Cockshott Point walk.

An Asian barbecue restaurant and bar on three floors at 18 Ash Street, a minute up from the Bowness piers. Its own dog page puts the welcome on the ground floor: "Our ground-floor bar is a laid-back spot where you can eat, drink, and relax with your pup", with dogs welcome during all daytime hours, water bowls and treats. Small dogs are also taken upstairs in the first-floor restaurant. They suggest coming before 1pm or after 4pm at weekends if your dog is nervous, which is honest advice for a busy three-storey building.

The restaurant at Windermere Marina Village, south of Bowness past Ferry Nab, looking out over the moorings. Its own page states that there are "spacious indoor and outdoor seating areas where dogs are welcome", with fresh water bowls and complimentary dog treats, and it makes a point of taking muddy paws. Because it is inside as well as out, it is one of the few options round Bowness that still works in weather. The walk in along Ferry Nab Road is a dogs-on-leads area under the council's order.

The Bowness sister of the Coniston cafe, on Glebe Road right on the lake front between the piers and Cockshott Point. The company's own site states the Bowness policy without qualification as "Dogs welcome", where the Coniston entry on the same page limits dogs to the terrace, so this is the more useful of the two if the weather has turned. It opens 9.30am to 4.30pm daily with hot food until 4pm. It sits directly on the Glebe, which is the promenade section where the council's dogs order requires a lead.

The lakeside circuit south out of Bowness Bay, and the only easy way to get a dog to the water's edge in the middle of town without crossing the launch slipways. From the Glebe Road car park the promenade runs north to the piers, then back south across the Glebe to the point at Cockshott, where the shore path swings round to face Belle Isle. Ferry Nab and the Windermere Ferry slip close the loop, and the return leg is along Ferry Nab Road. Two of the three named sections carry a lead requirement under the council's dogs order, so treat this as an on-lead walk throughout.

Eight and three quarter miles and four hours, linking the two viewpoints above the lake with the length of Bowness in between: quiet lanes and field paths north of Windermere, then the Dales Way out of Bowness Bay onto the little rocky top of Brant Fell. It starts at Windermere station and can be broken at Bowness Bay, where the 599 bus runs back up the hill every twenty minutes in season. There is drinking water and a bowl outside several of the Bowness cafes, the bay itself is a good paddle away from the boat landings, but the middle mile through the town is pavement and busy with day visitors, and both fell tops are grazed - lead on above the last gate.

A Victorian house on Lake Road on the hill above Bowness, ten minutes down to the bay and the piers. Its own site states plainly that well-behaved dogs are welcome in its pet-friendly rooms, and equally plainly that those rooms can only be booked by telephone rather than through the website. That is the detail worth knowing: an online booking will not get you a dog room. No dog charge is published and the site says nothing about the bar and lounge.

The scheduled boats out of Bowness Pier, running north to Waterhead at Ambleside and south to Lakeside, and the single most useful thing on this lake if you want a linear walk with a dog. Their published policy is that well-behaved dogs travel free on every cruise and on the self-drive boats, with no need to add the dog to an online booking. A lead is required for the whole journey and dogs must stay off the seats. The Ambleside sailing lets you walk one shore and ride back rather than retracing the A591.