Dog-friendly Masham and around

A traditional local on the north side of Masham's market square with a huge beer garden looking over the River Ure and lower Wensleydale. Dogs are allowed in any part of the pub, which makes it the easiest choice in town if you are eating with one. Two letting rooms, darts and a good beer list.

Theakston's flagship country inn in brewery town Masham, pouring the full range of award-winning cask ales. Well-behaved dogs are welcome in the public bar and beer garden but not the dining room, and a limited number of dog-friendly bedrooms can be pre-booked at fifteen pounds per dog. Handy for both brewery visitor centres.

Castle hotel on the 20,000-acre Swinton Estate outside Masham, with parkland, lakes and falconry. Most bedrooms are dog friendly (around twenty-five pounds per dog per night) and dogs are welcome in the Terrace Bar, Billiard Room, Morning Room, Lower Hall and estate shop, though not the restaurant. Four-legged guests get a bed, chew, bowls and eco poo bags.

A Georgian coaching inn overlooking Masham's enormous market square, an affordable base between the two breweries and the Dales proper. Twelve of the twenty-seven bedrooms take dogs, and they must be requested when you book rather than turned up with. Handy for the Ure riverside walk and the Black Sheep and Theakston tours.

Paul Theakston's famous independent brewery on the edge of Masham, with daily tours, the Sheepy Shop and a popular bar and kitchen. Dogs are welcome in the bar and bistro seating areas, and the venue is a regular haunt for walkers doing the Masham riverside circuit; production tours themselves are not suitable for dogs. Expect the full range of Black Sheep ales at the source.

The historic home of Old Peculier, brewing in Masham since 1827, with guided tours daily from the Black Bull in Paradise visitor centre bar. Dogs are restricted to the small covered outdoor seating area; the indoor bar and brewery tours are people-only. Fine for a quick half with the dog in tow, but the White Bear or Black Sheep bar suit a longer session better.

A family-run Georgian village inn on Main Street, the natural finish to a walk through Hackfall Woods a mile down the lane. The pub says simply that dogs are welcome too, and the bar is the right sort of flagged, unhurried room for a damp spaniel.

A Georgian coaching inn on West Tanfield's main street, now a smart dining pub with a Georgian dining room and a proper stocked bar alongside it. The kitchen is ambitious but the door policy is not: the inn describes itself as dog, cyclist and muddy boot friendly, so wet spaniels are as welcome as walkers. Log fires in the winter months and three bedrooms upstairs if the day runs long.

A village inn on Church Street with a garden that runs down to the banks of the River Ure, and one of the prettiest pub views in the Vale of Mowbray. Well behaved dogs are welcome and, in the pub's own words, might be offered a biscuit or two from the jar kept on the bar. Five en-suite bedrooms make it a sensible base for the Ure valley and Thornborough.

A fifteenth-century gatehouse standing beside the River Ure, all that survives of the vanished manor house it once guarded, with a fine oriel window on the first floor. English Heritage keeps it free to enter and open daily, and states that dogs on leads are welcome throughout. It sits directly beside the churchyard, so it pairs neatly with a riverside stroll.

Welcoming country inn overlooking the cricket green in Thornton Watlass, a few miles south-west of Bedale at the entrance to Wensleydale. The owners welcome families and dogs alike, with dogs made comfortable in the bar and dog-friendly rooms available for a small charge per stay. Local ales and pub classics complete the picture.

A seventeenth-century inn on the green at Snape, with flagged floors, low beams and real fires in the bar and tap room. Dogs are welcome in the bar area, which is much the nicer place to sit anyway, and the converted barn across the cobbled courtyard holds nine en-suite rooms. Snape Castle is three minutes' walk away.

One hundred acres of magnificent woodland garden between Bedale and Snape, with waymarked trails, a lake and national tree collections. Dogs are welcome on leads throughout the arboretum grounds, though not inside the tearoom, the children's play area or the Bird of Prey and Mammal Centre. Autumn colour here is among the best dog walks in the vale.

Three vast Neolithic earthwork circles set in open fields between West Tanfield and Nosterfield, sometimes billed as the Stonehenge of the North. English Heritage allows dogs but asks that they are kept on short leads at all times and that visitors stick to the footpaths and desire lines. The henge fields are grazed by sheep, so this is a lead-on visit rather than a run about.