Dog-friendly Widecombe in the Moor

The big fourteenth-century inn beside the church in Widecombe, geared to walkers coming off the moor. The house line is that they are very doggy friendly and always have a treat waiting, and the walled garden takes the overflow on a summer Sunday.

Four miles up onto the finest small ridge on the moor, two and a quarter hours with 320 metres of climbing on lane, then open moor grass and granite over Bonehill Rocks, Bell Tor, Chinkwell and Honeybag. Start at the paid village car park at Widecombe beside the church and the Rugglestone Inn, which has toilets and fills with coach parties in the afternoon, or park free on the moor edge at Bonehill and shorten the climb. Everything above the last gate is common grazing with sheep, cattle and ponies all year, so leads are required from 1 March to 31 July and sensible whenever stock is close; there is a stream below Bonehill for a drink but nothing on the ridge, and the granite clitter between the tors is hard on soft paws.

A Bronze Age settlement of two dozen hut circles inside a stone enclosure wall, high on the moor between Widecombe and Postbridge. English Heritage lists it as dog friendly and there is no gate or ticket, but the whole approach is grazed common land, which is the honest caveat on all of central Dartmoor.