Dog-friendly Redcar

A High Street pub in the middle of Redcar, a few minutes' walk up from the Esplanade and the sand. Its own website states plainly that it welcomes well-behaved dogs into the whole pub, not a corner of it, and that it aims to keep them as comfortable as their owners; that covers the bar and the beer garden. Open from 11am Monday to Thursday, noon at weekends, with a 1am licence on Friday and Saturday. Useful as the wet-dog stop after Redcar beach because you do not have to negotiate which room you are allowed in.

Coatham Marsh is a Tees Valley Wildlife Trust reserve of lakes, reedbed and old ballast mounds squeezed between Redcar's western edge and the Warrenby steelworks land, and the circuit round the two main waters is a flat two miles. The Trust's instruction on the reserve is blunt and printed on its own page: keep dogs on a lead, clear up after your animals, do not disturb the wildlife. Start from the free Tod Point Road car park halfway along the Warrenby side; paths are surfaced on the south of the reserve and unsurfaced on the north, and several flood after heavy rain. It is a birdwatchers' reserve rather than a running-about one, so this is the walk for a wet January morning when the beach is blowing sand, not for a dog that needs to burn off an hour.

Two and a quarter miles of level promenade running the whole length of Redcar, from the Majuba Road car park at Coatham, past the leisure centre, the Regent cinema and the vertical pier, and on beside Granville Terrace to the Stray car park at the Marske end. The council states dogs are welcome on a lead along the Esplanade all year, including through the summer months when the sand between the Regent and Graffenberg Street is closed to them, which makes this the reliable Redcar walk in July and August. Drop onto the sand at either end and there is no restriction at all: Coatham to the west of the cinema, and the Stray to the east of Graffenberg Street. It is flat, surfaced and wind-blasted, with benches, bins and cafes the whole way, and it takes a wheelchair or a buggy as easily as a dog.

A family-run hotel of thirty-six en-suite rooms on Redcar High Street looking out over the seafront, eleven of them on the ground floor. Its own site states it is a pet friendly hotel and that guests are welcome to relax with their dogs in the lounge in the evening and at breakfast in the morning, with a charge of £10 per stay rather than per night. Dog-friendly accommodation is named on specific room types rather than offered across the whole hotel, so ask for one when you book. Check-in is 1pm booking direct or 3pm through an agency, check-out 10.30am, breakfast 7am to 9am, and the Esplanade and the sand are two minutes away.

A restored eighteenth-century walled garden on Plantation Road at Kirkleatham, two miles inland from Redcar seafront, with growing beds, glasshouses and a cafe inside the walls. The garden's own visitor page states it is dog friendly and that four-legged friends are welcome in the cafe as well as the garden, which is unusual for a paid-entry garden. Open Wednesday to Sunday 9am to 4pm with last garden entry at three; adult admission is £4.00, children £3.00, under-threes free. Parking on site is free, and it is a sheltered option on a day when the coast is unwalkable.