Dog-friendly walks in Ashford in the Water

Five and a half miles and about three hours over the limestone plateau to the best-preserved lead mine in the Peak, returning through Great Shacklow Wood. Start at the roadside spaces by Sheepwash Bridge in Ashford-in-the-Water, which take a dozen cars and no more, so an early arrival or a walk out from Bakewell is wise. This is walled sheep pasture the whole way with squeeze stiles a broad-chested dog will need lifting through, the Magpie Mine site has open shafts fenced but unroofed and no dog should be loose there, and the only reliable water is the Wye at the end of the wood.

A four and a half mile circuit of about two and a half hours that drops from the Monsal Head viewpoint into the dale, follows the Wye upstream past Cressbrook and comes back over the viaduct on the Monsal Trail. The steep path down from Monsal Head is loose limestone and hard on the knees in the wet; the car park at Monsal Head is pay-and-display, small, and full by ten on a summer Sunday. Cattle and sheep graze the dale bottom and the meadows above Upperdale, so a fixed lead of no more than two metres is required near stock and on the access land above the dale from 1 March to 31 July for the ground-nesting birds; the river gives shallow, easy drinking all the way along.