Dog-friendly Kilnsea

The last pub before Spurn, standing on Kilnsea Road looking straight out over the mouth of the Humber, and a three-roomed place of bar, saloon and dining room. The large garden is a known birders’ site with waders, shipping and some of the best sunsets on this coast in front of it, and Great Newsome and Timothy Taylor beers turn up alongside the regular Tetley Bitter. Food is served Tuesday to Sunday with hot pies on Mondays, the kitchen closes on Mondays in winter, and entry is level with a shallow gradient though the toilets are not accessible. Motorhomes may stop over by arrangement if you are using the pub. Dogs are welcome, on CAMRA branch evidence from a survey dated 17 February 2024 rather than the pub’s own words.

From the Kilnsea Wetlands car park on Easington Road this loop takes you out over the sea bank to Beacon Ponds and the shingle spit at Beacon Lagoons, then south along the bank towards the neck of Spurn before turning back inland. It is the little tern colony that makes it: the birds nest on open shingle from about May into July, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust fences and signs the nesting ground, and the Trust asks that dogs are kept on leads because ground-nesting birds read a loose dog as a predator and will abandon eggs and chicks. Kilnsea Wetlands, which you pass on the way out, requires leads outright. Underfoot it is grass, bank top and loose shingle, dead flat, with no shade and nothing to break the wind off the North Sea. Sheep graze parts of the bank, so keep the lead on past stock.

Kilnsea Wetlands is a Yorkshire Wildlife Trust reserve of thirty-five hectares of freshwater and saline pools, islands, spits and wet grassland, made by the Trust behind the sea bank north of Kilnsea village. The Trust's own instruction for the reserve is that dogs must be on a lead, and this is a wader roost rather than a running-about field, so expect to hold the lead the whole way round. Paths are flat grass and turn to mud through the winter; the car park is on Easington Road, on the left after you come up Long Bank and before you reach Kilnsea village. The circuit takes you past the hides overlooking the lagoons and out to the sea bank at Beacon Ponds, where the shingle and the North Sea are on the other side. Autumn and winter high tides are when the redshank, godwit and dunlin come in.

The inland-facing half of this coast, and a completely different walk from the North Sea side. From the Crown and Anchor at Kilnsea the King Charles III England Coast Path follows the flood bank west along the Humber, past the clays and out along the edge of Welwick Saltmarsh, one of the biggest continuous saltmarshes on the estuary and a roost for thousands of waders and wintering raptors. Natural England opened this stretch as part of the hardest section of the whole national trail to establish, and the route is designed to roll back inland as the bank is realigned, so a signpost occasionally sits somewhere the map does not show. It finishes at Skeffling. The bank is grazed by sheep and cattle for much of its length, so a short lead past stock is not optional, and there is no shelter, no water and no shop the whole way.

This is the only walk at Spurn that dogs may do, and the rule is worth reading before you drive down. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, which owns and runs Spurn National Nature Reserve, allows dogs through the gate at the end of Spurn Road but requires you to turn north at the start of the beach: dogs cannot be taken south along the beach towards the point and the lighthouse, because those routes are inside the Site of Special Scientific Interest. Turning north from the Discovery Centre gives you an open shingle-and-sand shore under a low crumbling clay cliff, with the Humber estuary birds offshore and no shelter of any kind. The Trust asks that dogs are on leads and that you clear up, and signs on the reserve mark where you may walk. Dogs are welcome inside the Spurn Discovery Centre itself, which has the café and the toilets.

The Yorkshire Wildlife Trust's visitor centre sits on the low ground at Kilnsea looking out over the mouth of the Humber, and the Trust states on its Spurn reserve page that dogs are welcome inside the Discovery Centre. That matters here, because the reserve itself is largely closed to dogs: you may take a dog through the gate at the end of Spurn Road but must turn north along the beach, and the black and purple routes south towards the point and the lighthouse are inside the Site of Special Scientific Interest and are for visitors without dogs. Inside there is a cafe with a wall of glass facing the estuary, a shop, toilets including an accessible one, and electric car charging. There is a large pay and display car park with disabled bays, free to Trust members, and signs across the reserve mark exactly where a dog may go.