Dog-friendly Buttermere

The hotel between Buttermere and Crummock Water, and about as good a base for lakeshore walking as the county has. The refitted public bar is fully dog-friendly, with a dog menu and gravy bones behind the bar; the restaurant is not, so residents with dogs take breakfast in the bar at a single 9.30am sitting. All standard rooms and two self-catering apartments take one dog.

A farm cafe in Buttermere village with its own paid car park, a few yards from the start of the lake circuit and the Rannerdale path. Its own site says the cafe is dog friendly, and there is a dog seating area indoors rather than a bench outside the door, which is the difference between a usable stop and a wet one in this valley. The parking charge includes use of the toilets, and the car park is a useful backup when the National Trust one is full.

A mile and a half from the free roadside car park at Cinderdale on Crummock Water, out along the fellside below Grasmoor and back along the lake shore. The high leg passes a post-medieval sheepfold rebuilt by the National Trust in the 1990s and a wall stone said to have been used to sharpen iron age swords. The drop to the shore is steep and slippery when wet. On the lakeside leg the path darkens almost to black where it crosses a medieval bloomery, and lumps of iron slag still show on the beach.

Seven and a half miles and around three and a quarter hours with very little climb, following the wilder western shore of Crummock Water out to the shingle spit at Low Ling Crag and returning under Melbreak. It starts in Buttermere village from the National Trust car park; there is also a small free parking area at Lanthwaite Green at the far end if you want to walk it the other way round. The spit itself is the point of the walk for a dog - a curved beach of clean shingle with deep water either side and nobody on it - but the shore path is rough and boggy in places, there is a beck ford that runs knee-deep after rain, and the Scale Bridge fields are grazed with lambs from March.

A short, steep ridge walk out of Buttermere village that buys an enormous view for very little distance. The path leaves the National Trust car park, crosses the road to a stile and climbs the grassy spine of Low Bank to the 355m cairn on Rannerdale Knotts, looking down on Buttermere, Crummock Water and the Secret Valley of Rannerdale at once. The descent to the road at Hause Point is narrow, winding and finishes on a stone-pitched section that turns greasy in the wet, so it is not one for a dog that pulls. The return is along the Crummock shore and through Nether How wood, where there is easy shingle for a swim before the footbridge back to the village.

Four and three quarter miles, a shade over two hours, and only 60 metres of climb - the flattest complete lake circuit in the Lakes and the one to bring a tired dog to. Start from the National Trust car park in Buttermere village behind the Fish Inn; it is paid, holds about 90 cars and is full by nine on a fine morning, with the smaller Honister-side car park at Gatesgarth as the overflow. The shore path gives water access every few hundred metres and the beach at the Gatesgarth end is the best swim in the valley, but there are grazing sheep and cattle in the fields at both ends, a short rock-cut tunnel near Hassness that echoes and unsettles nervous dogs, and the last half mile on the village side is shared with the lane.

The old Fish Inn in the middle of Buttermere village, between Buttermere and Crummock Water and at the start of the lake circuit, the Rannerdale ridge and the Scale Force path. The hotel lists dog friendly as one of its headline features, gives a reserved parking space with each room and will lay on a private breakfast at no charge, which is the practical fix for a hotel that does not want dogs in a full dining room. There is a large beer garden and the bar and all-day dining are open to non-residents as well.