Dog-friendly Bamburgh

The smart end of Bamburgh eating, with Lindisfarne oysters and lobster on the menu and the castle wall filling the window. Dogs sit at designated dog-friendly tables inside the restaurant or out in the beer garden, so it pays to say you have one when you book. Only two of the seven bedrooms take dogs.

The village local, known for its beer garden and for being the least starchy door in Bamburgh. Well-behaved dogs are welcome in every part of the bar area and in the garden, which is where most people end up on a warm evening. The inn has rooms but publishes no dog policy for them.

A Victorian hotel on Bamburgh's green with a jukebox-and-darts bar on one side and a brasserie on the other. Dogs are welcome in the bar and the outside areas but not in the brasserie, and the hotel keeps a set of dog-friendly bedrooms charged at a nightly supplement per dog. Ask for a room with a castle view and take the five-minute walk to the sand.

Home-baked scones and pots of tea in an old stone house a hundred yards from the castle gate. Dogs are always welcome, and in decent weather the courtyard patio garden at the back is the spot to aim for. Expect a queue at half past three in August.

Bamburgh's serious seafood restaurant, small enough that booking is not optional in season. There is a dog-friendly area which you select as part of the online booking, rather than a general welcome across the room. Shellfish landed at Seahouses, cooked plainly and well.

Five and a half miles in about three hours, out along the sand and rock under the castle to the lighthouse at Blackrocks Point, round Budle Point to the mudflats at Waren Mill and back inland over the golf links. Start from the pay-and-display car park on Links Road in the village, which is the largest in Bamburgh and still full by mid-morning in August. Northumberland has no seasonal dog ban on this beach, so the sand is off-lead all year; the return crosses grazed fields and a working golf course, and the Budle Bay flats hold roosting wildfowl that a loose dog will scatter.

Seven and a half miles with barely 70 metres of climbing, three hours of it, south down four miles of open sand to Seahouses harbour and back on the dune path and field edges behind. It starts at the Links Road car park in Bamburgh, and if that is full the alternative is to run the walk in reverse from the big pay-and-display behind Seahouses seafront. The whole beach is free of any seasonal dog restriction, so it is off-lead sand nearly the entire way out, with fresh water where the Hoppen Burn crosses the beach; the inland return passes through sheep fields and along a short stretch of the B1340.

A two and a half mile hour-and-a-quarter stroll from the village green round the seaward side of the castle to the whinstone slabs of Harkess Rocks and the squat white lighthouse at Blackrocks Point. Park on Links Road in the village and walk out past the cricket field; The Wynding has a small free strip of roadside parking nearer the start but only a dozen spaces. Off-lead throughout on sand and rock with no seasonal ban to worry about, rock pools to drink from at low tide, and the only caution is the slippery kelp on the black slabs and the tide cutting the corner below the castle at high water.

A quiet, old-fashioned small hotel on the edge of the village, handy for both the castle and the golf links. The hotel states that it is dog friendly but does not say which bedrooms take dogs or whether there is a charge, so confirm when you book. Beach access is through the dunes at the end of Links Road.

The great red-sandstone block on its whinstone crag, still lived in by the Armstrong family and open to visitors most of the year. Dogs on short leads are welcome across the grounds and in the Victorian Stables and Tack Room Takeaway, with water bowls dotted about the site. The State Rooms, Clock Tower Cafe and the aviation museum are for assistance dogs only.