Dog-friendly walks in Staveley

Staveley Nature Reserve

A flat three-mile hour-and-a-quarter circuit of the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's 79-hectare wetland reserve, built on old gravel workings, with barely 10 metres of height change and a network of surfaced paths that take a buggy or a wheelchair and stay usable in midwinter. The car park on Minskip Road takes a dozen cars, with disabled parking off Main Street through a radar-key gate by the church, and the reserve sits ten minutes from the A1(M) south-west of Boroughbridge. Highland cattle and Hebridean sheep graze here all year, so dogs must be on a lead on every path, and they are not allowed in the largest hide; the lagoons draw bitterns and marsh harriers, so keep the noise down.