The Merrie Lion, Fenny Compton

The Merrie Lion is a village pub with rooms in Fenny Compton, out in the south Warwickshire countryside between Southam and Banbury, and it is one of the more straightforward dog-friendly stays in this part of the county. Dogs are welcome in designated rooms, and guests who have used them rate the stay highly enough to earn a 4.7/5 paw rating.

The layout is what makes it work. The bedrooms sit in a separate part of the building from the bar, so a dog settling down for the evening is not listening to a pub through the wall, and guests travelling with dogs consistently describe the rooms as quiet, spacious and comfortable. Breakfast is included and is the thing regular guests mention most, along with the kitchen's evening food.

Fenny Compton is a canal village, and the towpath gives you flat, traffic-free walking straight from the village for as far as you want to take it. The Burton Dassett Hills are a few miles north for something more open, and the motorway is close enough that the pub works well as an overnight break on a long drive with a dog in the car.

Dogs are welcome in the pub itself, which matters if you would rather eat with yours than leave it upstairs. Beyond that the detail is unpublished, so confirm which rooms are dog-friendly and whether any charge applies at the time you book rather than on arrival. This is a small pub and the dog rooms are a subset of the total. It is also further from Stratford-upon-Avon than it looks on a map once you are on the lanes, so treat it as a countryside base rather than a Stratford one.

Best suited to couples and solo travellers who want a quiet, well-fed overnight or short break with their dog, and who would rather stay in a working village pub than a hotel.