The White Horse, Ripon

The White Horse is an old pub with rooms on North Street in Ripon, a couple of minutes' walk from the market square and the cathedral. What makes it worth a look for dog owners is the layout: alongside rooms in the main building there is a small courtyard behind an archway, where a row of former stables has been converted into ground-floor units, each with its own door onto the courtyard and a table and chairs outside it, and a gate at the end of the courtyard leading up to a grassed area. No stairs and no corridors, which is about as easy an arrangement as a town-centre pub can offer for getting a dog in and out.

Dogs are specifically listed as allowed rather than merely tolerated, and the property flags a charge for pets, so budget for an extra on top of the room rate and confirm the amount when you book. Parking is on site, which is genuinely useful in Ripon, though the spaces are tight and fill up. The pub is used to cyclists and has somewhere to store bikes, which tells you something about the sort of stay it is set up for.

Be clear-eyed about the standard. This is budget accommodation and it shows: the wider guest rating sits at 7.1 out of 10 across more than seven hundred stays, and the complaints are consistent rather than occasional - tired carpets, rooms wanting a deep clean, damp or musty smells, and the occasional maintenance fault left unfixed. Guests who arrive wanting a cheap, no-frills bed in a good location tend to leave satisfied; those expecting more do not.

Dog owners are thinly represented among the reviews here, so there is less to go on than at most properties, and what there is is positive but brief: a good spot for having a dog, with plenty within walking distance. The White Horse earns a 4.0/5 paw rating on that basis, and it suits someone who wants a cheap, central Ripon base with ground-floor access and a dog in tow, and who will look the room over before unpacking.