Townstal Farmhouse

Townstal Farmhouse is a characterful old farmhouse B&B on the hill above Dartmouth, and dog owners who stay there tend to come back. What they describe is not a property that permits dogs but one that has thought about them: particular rooms set up for guests travelling with a dog, direct outside access from the ground floor, and staff who treat the dog as part of the booking rather than a complication.

The practical details are where it shows. Rooms have their own fridge, which guests with dogs use for food as much as for wine, and the direct outside access means the last walk of the night does not involve crossing a lounge. Parking is on site and generous by Dartmouth standards, which is worth more than it sounds in a town where parking is the usual holiday headache.

Breakfast is home-cooked, runs to a wide choice and is charged separately from the room. Guests rate it highly enough that most take it anyway. The hosts and their staff draw warm and repeated praise, both from guests with dogs and from those without.

Dartmouth itself is a twenty-minute walk downhill, with the number 90 bus for the climb back up. The riverfront, the castle walk and the coast path beyond are all reachable on foot.

Flag the dog at the time of booking rather than on arrival. Only some rooms take dogs and those carry an additional charge, and where the property has not been told in advance, guests have ended up in a perfectly good room that simply lacked the direct outdoor access they wanted. Rooms vary a lot in size, the building is old enough to have low beams and awkward corners, and the decor is more dated-charming than contemporary.

It suits dog owners who want a friendly, traditional B&B within walking distance of Dartmouth and are happy to trade a contemporary finish for character and a genuinely practical set-up for dogs.