Cary Arms & Spa

Cary Arms sits right on Babbacombe Beach below the cliffs north of Torquay, and it is set up for dogs to a degree that is rare at the luxury end. Dogs stay for 25 pounds per pet per night and find a bed, bowls and treats waiting in the room, and there is a dog menu in the restaurant - which dogs are allowed into, along with the lounge, rather than being shut in the bedroom while you eat.

Owners travelling with dogs single out the staff more than anything else. The valet service that takes your car on arrival is a real help after a long drive with a dog in the back, the welcome packages in the cottages run well beyond a token gesture, and the tone throughout is that the dog is part of the booking rather than something to be managed around. Plenty of parties end up eating on site every night of their stay.

The layout suits dogs too. Alongside the inn rooms there are thatched cottages, beach huts and beach suites with their own outdoor space and sea views, which gives a dog somewhere to settle without shared corridors. The cliffside site is the trade-off: there are a great many steep external steps, and at least one cottage has no downstairs toilet, so it is not the place for an elderly dog or an owner with limited mobility.

Two things are worth knowing before you book. Dogs go only in certain rooms and only by prior arrangement, and guests who booked without flagging the dog have ended up in plainer rooms than they expected, so put the dog on the reservation directly with the inn. And although the property carries a five-star rating, a minority of guests have raised housekeeping and service standards, and dogs dining alongside people in the restaurant is not to everyone's taste. At 4.4/5 this is a genuinely strong dog welcome at a price to match.