Dog-friendly Wells Next the Sea

A plain, well-liked local on Church Street away from the quay crowds, doing locally sourced food and a proper Sunday roast. The pub states simply that dogs are allowed in the pub, which makes it one of the easier wet-afternoon options in Wells. Tuesday lunchtime is a two-course senior citizens' menu.

Chris Coubrough's coaching inn on the Buttlands, with a bar, the Chancery room and a conservatory dining room. Dogs are taken, but not everywhere: the hotel asks you to telephone before you arrive because not all areas are dog friendly, and only some bedrooms accept them. Food is a step up from standard pub cooking.

A Georgian inn on the Buttlands, the tree-lined green a street back from the Wells quay, also part of the Holkham Estate. Dogs are welcome in most of the pub and in the majority of the bedrooms, and the inn asks you to say you are bringing one when you book. A sensible base for the Wells-to-Holkham beach walk.

A small quayside eating place on The Quay at Wells, open Wednesday to Sunday all year round and run by the same family as the Albatros. It states on its own site that it is dog friendly. Convenient before or after the long walk out to the beach along the harbour wall.

A three-mile hour-and-a-half loop on soft sand, boardwalk and needle-carpeted forest track, out past the stilted beach huts and back through the pines on the inland side of the dune ridge. It starts and finishes at the Pinewoods pay-and-display car park at the end of Beach Road; the harbour miniature railway runs from the quay in season if you would rather not drive. Dogs are off lead on the open sand and in the pines, there is fresh water at the car park kiosk, but the marked no-dog area in front of the beach huts stands and now includes the sands where the seals haul out, so read the signs before you let go of the lead.

Eight and three quarter miles and the best part of four hours, flat throughout but exposed, out along the harbour wall and the Norfolk Coast Path to Stiffkey and back over the fields by the Whirligig. Start at the quay in Wells, where the long-stay car park sits behind the harbour and is pay and display all year; the Coasthopper bus makes a one-way version easy. There are stiles and kissing gates on the field return that a very large dog will need lifting over, cattle graze the Freshes and the saltmarsh creeks fill fast on a rising tide, so leads on for the grazing sections and keep an eye on the water.

Six and a half miles in about two and three quarter hours, almost dead flat, running west along the sand from the Wells beach huts, in through the pine belt to Holkham village and back on the raised bank and the Norfolk Coast Path. Start at the Pinewoods car park at the end of Beach Road, a mile north of the town, which is pay and display and busy from breakfast in August; the harbour miniature railway saves the walk back if you prefer. Dogs run free on the open sand between the two beach car parks, but Wells keeps a no-dog area in front of the beach huts that now extends to cover the sands where the seals haul out, and from Holkham Gap westwards the marked breeding zones require leads between 1 April and 31 August.

A large holiday park at the seaward end of Beach Road, sitting between the pinewoods and the beach with the miniature railway running back into town. The park says four-legged friends are very welcome, but does not publish which accommodation takes dogs or any charge. The unrestricted Wells beach is over the dune bank.