Dog-friendly walks in Wooler

Six and a half miles and 560 metres of climbing in four hours, over the granite tors of Housey Crags and up the long grass ridge to the 714-metre summit of Hedgehope Hill, the second of the Cheviots, returning down the Harthope Burn. Start from the informal roadside pull-ins in the Harthope valley below Langleeford; there is no car park, no toilet and no phone signal, and the lane from Wooler is single track for four miles. Genuinely remote walking where the nearest help is a long way off: the burn gives water low down and nothing does above, the tors have short scrambly steps a big dog will need helping over, and sheep and ground-nesting birds mean leads on open ground from March to July.

Eight and a half miles and 587 metres of climbing, four and a half to five hours up the Harthope Burn past Harthope Linn to Cairn Hill, along the Pennine Way flagstones to the 815-metre summit of The Cheviot and down over Scald Hill. Start from the roadside parking above Langleeford, at the end of the single-track lane from Wooler: there are perhaps a dozen informal spaces along the valley and none of them are a car park, so early arrival matters. Water in the burn for the first two miles and nothing above it, deep peat hags on the plateau that a dog will disappear into, no shelter at all on top, sheep on every field and open fell, and ground-nesting golden plover and dunlin from March to July when leads are asked for.

Five and a half miles and 290 metres of climbing in about three hours, out on St Cuthbert’s Way over Gains Law to the Iron Age hillfort on Humbleton Hill and back by the old drove track to Wooler Common. Start from the Padgepool Place car park in Wooler, which is free with around 60 spaces and never full, or drive the mile up to the small free Wooler Common car park to cut the climb. This is sheep country from end to end, with the National Park asking for leads through the lambing season, ground-nesting curlew and lapwing on the hill ground from March to July, and only the Humbleton Burn for water, though the forest edge at Wooler Common gives an off-lead stretch.