Photograph: Antoine Lamielle, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
The limestone arch and the shingle beach beneath it, reached by a steep stepped path down from the clifftop car park. Dorset Council lists it as open to dogs all year round with no seasonal restriction. The descent and the return climb are hard work on a hot day, so carry water.
Lulworth Estate's holiday park on the clifftop above Durdle Door, with the path down to the arch starting from the site. A number of holiday homes, camping pods, skylight cabins and touring pitches take up to two dogs at £25 per dog per stay, and the Man O' War bar and restaurant on site welcomes dogs. Choose a pet-friendly unit when booking, as most are not.
A 3.6-mile circuit of the most photographed mile of English coast, two hours and 230 metres of climb, up the stepped chalk of Hambury Tout to the arch at Durdle Door, on to Scratchy Bottom and back by farm track and lane to Stair Hole. Hard-surfaced and stepped for the first half, grass and stone after, and busy: this is not a quiet walk between April and October. Start at the Lulworth Cove main car park, a large paid estate car park with the visitor centre attached, which fills completely by mid-morning in summer with queues on the B3070. The clifftop is unfenced above sheer chalk, sheep graze the Newlands fields, and the cove is the one place a dog can swim, though the shingle shelves steeply.
An almost perfect circle of shingle scooped out of the Purbeck limestone, with the fossil forest and Stair Hole on either side. Dorset Council lists it as open to dogs all year round. Leads are required on the roads and walkways leading down to the cove.
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