Dog-friendly walks in St Bees

St Bees Head and Fleswick Bay

Five miles and about two and a half hours for 210 metres of climb, north from the beach along the top of the red sandstone cliffs to the shingle cove at Fleswick Bay and the lighthouse on North Head - the first miles of the coast-to-coast walk, done in reverse. It starts at the Seacote beach car park in St Bees, which is paid, holds around 200 cars and is the largest on this coast; St Bees station on the Cumbrian Coast line is ten minutes' walk inland. The clifftop is the honest warning: an unfenced 90-metre drop for three miles with the RSPB seabird colonies below, so a short lead the whole way, and the field boundaries above are grazed. Dogs on the beach itself are covered by a Cumberland Council dog control order - read the signs at the access points before you let one onto the sand.