Dog-friendly days out near Crewkerne

South Somerset is easy country for a dog. Most of the good walking is open access or footpath, and the pubs are used to it. A few places are worth knowing about specifically.

Ham Hill

A quarter of an hour north of us, and the obvious first choice. Ham Hill Country Park covers around 210 acres of old quarry, rampart and meadow on top of an Iron Age hillfort, with long views over the Somerset Levels. Dogs are welcome throughout, with the usual requests about livestock and ground-nesting birds in spring. There is a visitor centre and café, and the Prince of Wales pub sits on the hill itself and takes dogs inside and out, which makes it about the most convenient walk-and-lunch combination in the area.

National Trust parkland

Montacute House, twenty minutes away, welcomes dogs in both the garden and the wider parkland, which includes orchards and walking trails. Barrington Court, twenty-five minutes in the other direction, has estate and parkland you can walk a dog through. Neither wants a dog inside the house, so this is a walk with a good building in the middle of it rather than a full day.

The Liberty Trail

The 28-mile waymarked path between Ham Hill and Lyme Regis passes through Misterton, a mile and a half below the town. It is field paths, lanes and woodland, which means gates, stiles and stock, so leads on and expect to lift a smaller dog occasionally. Any stage of it makes a good half day.

Beaches, honestly

This is where people get caught out. Most of the main bathing beaches in west Dorset, including Lyme Regis front beach and West Bay, restrict or ban dogs across the summer season, broadly from the beginning of May to the end of September. Some stretches stay open all year and others do not, the rules are set beach by beach, and they get reviewed. Look up Dorset Council’s current notice before you drive down rather than trusting a list, ours included.

Between October and April the coast is largely yours, and it is arguably the better season for it anyway: bigger seas, fewer people, and the winter storms are what shake the fossils out of the cliffs at Charmouth.

Back at the Swan

Dogs are welcome in the bar here, which is where most of them end up, flat out under a table while somebody works through a roast. If you are staying the night, mention the dog when you book so we can sort the right room out.