Dog-friendly Guisborough

An estate pub on The Avenue at Hutton Meadows, on the south side of Guisborough and within walking distance of the lanes running up towards Hutton Village and the forest. The pub publishes its own dog page and welcomes dogs in the bar area, with water bowls and treats kept behind the bar. There is no published policy for the restaurant side, so ask at the door if you want to eat with the dog rather than drink.

Forestry England's yellow-waymarked loop from the Guisborough Forest and Walkway visitor centre at Pinchinthorpe, 2.75 miles and about an hour and a half. It opens with a steep pull up through the beech wood behind the car park, then settles onto forest road and track through mixed plantation with Guisborough and the whole of Teesside laid out below. There is no seasonal closure and no blanket lead rule: the Forestry England dog code asks only that dogs are kept close and in sight, and put on a lead if recall is unreliable. The beck gives a drink on the lower section, and the car park is Redcar and Cleveland pay and display, £1.50 up to an hour to £6.00 all day.

The short option from Pinchinthorpe visitor centre, 1.9 miles on orange markers and about three quarters of an hour. It climbs through beech woodland onto the higher forest roads, takes the view out over Guisborough and Teesside, then drops back to the car park. Almost all of it is firm forest road, which makes it the trail to pick after rain or with an older dog, and there is no seasonal closure. The cafe and toilets at the visitor centre stay open until 3pm at weekends and bank holidays when the centre itself is shut.

The old Guisborough branch railway, now a local nature reserve, running two flat miles west from the edge of town out to the forest visitor centre at Pinchinthorpe. It is level, wide and firm the whole way, shared with cyclists and horses, which makes it the obvious choice for an old dog, a barrow or a bad-weather day. Redcar and Cleveland's dog Public Spaces Protection Order, in force to 30 June 2028, puts no lead requirement on this route: the borough's on-lead areas are the formal parks at Locke Park, Borough Park, Zetland Park, Marske Valley Gardens, Marine Parade Lower Path Gardens, parts of Saltburn Valley Gardens and Coronation Park at Loftus, and none of them are here. Fouling and the fenced play areas are the offences that bite, at £100 on the spot and up to £1,000 in court.

The long way round to the sandstone prow that hangs over Guisborough, 5.2 miles of Forestry England forest road from the Pinchinthorpe visitor centre, out along the escarpment and back on a lower line. The Nab itself is the best view in East Cleveland, straight down onto the town with the sea beyond, and the ground up to it is firm track rather than moor. Forestry England allow dogs across the whole forest with no seasonal closure and no blanket lead rule, asking only that dogs are kept close and in sight; the crags at the Nab are unfenced, so that is where the lead earns its keep.

The longest of the three waymarked loops from Pinchinthorpe visitor centre, 3.7 miles on white markers and about two and a half hours. It runs east along the foot of the escarpment towards Hutton Village, climbs to the Hanging Stone, where a short detour opens the view over Teesside and the coast, and comes back past the Blue Lake, an old forestry water store. The route mixes plantation with working farmland, so leads go on at the field gates, and there is a steady steep pitch on forest road in each direction. There is no seasonal restriction here.

A self-catering farm cottage at Pinchinthorpe between Great Ayton and Guisborough, on the edge of the National Park boundary. The owners state that families and their well behaved pets are very welcome, without naming a charge or a limit. It sits within a few minutes' walk of the Guisborough Forest and Walkway visitor centre, which puts three waymarked forest loops and the old railway walkway on the doorstep.

A country house hotel on Whitby Lane on the south-east edge of Guisborough, with rooms in the Old Hall and the Woodland Wing and three shepherd huts in the grounds. Its own terms and conditions set the dog policy out flatly: dogs are welcome in certain bedrooms at £15 per night, but not in the shepherd huts, not in the public areas of the hotel and not in the dining areas. Worth knowing before you book, because it means the dog stays in the room while you eat, and the forest trails at Pinchinthorpe are a ten-minute drive west.