Dog-friendly West Tanfield

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.

Just under seven miles along the Ure from West Tanfield out towards Mickley and back, about three hours on riverside path, farm track and lane with only gentle rises and no serious climbing. Start from the village hall car park in West Tanfield, which works an honesty box, beside Marmion Tower and St Nicholas church at the bridge. The river gives long stretches of shallow gravel for a swim, but the banks are grazed by cattle and sheep and in places drop steeply and slipperily into deep water, so keep a dog under close control along the bank.

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.

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.