Three Chimneys Farm

Three Chimneys Farm is a farmhouse bed and breakfast on Bedgebury Road outside Goudhurst, in the part of the Kent Weald that is all orchards, hop country and narrow lanes. It rates extremely well with guests generally, at 9.7 out of 10 across more than sixty reviews, and dog owners are firmly among the happy ones.

The garden is the headline for anyone arriving with a dog: large, well cared for and properly enclosed, so there is somewhere safe to let a dog stretch out before or after a walk rather than a strip of gravel by the parking. Guests travelling with dogs describe a straightforwardly warm welcome, a cooked breakfast worth getting up for, and an owner who treats a dog turning up as entirely normal. Rooms have tea and coffee facilities, and the setting is quiet with good views over the surrounding countryside.

Walking is the other reason to come. Bedgebury Forest is close by and is one of the better dog-walking destinations in the south east, with miles of waymarked trails through the pinetum and the forest beyond it, while the lanes and footpaths around Goudhurst give you plenty without driving anywhere at all.

The thing to weigh is which part of the property you are booking. The farm runs bed and breakfast rooms in the farmhouse alongside Starvegoose, a self-catering cottage on the same land, and the pet terms the property publishes attach to Starvegoose, at an extra £15 a dog per week. Guests have plainly brought dogs and had breakfast cooked for them, so the two are not mutually exclusive, but it is worth agreeing which room or cottage the dog is booked into rather than assuming. Either way the setting suits a settled dog: quiet, enclosed and well away from traffic.

With that in mind it is one of the more comfortable dog-friendly stays in this corner of Kent, at 4.4/5.