Dog-friendly Shaftesbury

Rebuilt Georgian coaching inn on the Commons in the middle of Shaftesbury, with sixteen rooms and a serious kitchen. Dogs are welcome in the bar, where the full menu is served, the conservatory, the terrace and every one of the bedrooms, but not in the restaurant; the charge is £20 per dog per stay. Dogs must not be left alone in the room unless crated.

A 2.8-mile hour-and-a-half loop over the double summit of the wooded hill that rises out of Blackmore Vale, 230 acres of ancient small-leaved lime coppice with bluebells in May and long views west from the clearings. The main east to west track is stoned but steep near the entrance gate, and the side paths are grass, wet and genuinely muddy in winter. Start from the free Woodland Trust car park off New Lane three miles west of Shaftesbury, room for about twenty-five cars, with a two-metre height barrier at the entrance that rules out high vans. Dogs are welcome in Woodland Trust woods and this one is unfenced from any road, which makes it good off-lead ground; roe deer are everywhere, so recall matters.

A 2.4-mile hour-and-a-quarter circuit of a hilltop town, down the cobbles of Gold Hill, round the base of the greensand escarpment through St James, and back up to the abbey terrace and Castle Hill for a fifty-mile view over Blackmore Vale. Steep in both directions with 130 metres of climb, cobbles and steps that punish paws and knees alike. Start at the Bell Street or Coppice Street pay and display, both a couple of minutes from Park Walk; the town is on the bus route from Salisbury and Blandford. Leads for the cobbles and the terrace, where the drop is unfenced in places, and note that dogs must be on leads in public gardens under the Dorset order. There is a water bowl at several of the High Street cafés.

The excavated footprint of the Benedictine abbey founded by Alfred the Great, now a walled garden of herbs and orchard on the hilltop above Gold Hill. Dogs on leads are welcome, and there is a gift shop and refreshments. Small site, twenty minutes to half an hour unless you sit in the garden.