Westfield House, Skipton

Westfield House is the sort of place you book when the whole party wants to be under one roof, dogs included. It is a big Victorian townhouse on Keighley Road, a few minutes on foot from the middle of Skipton, with seven bedrooms, a run of en-suites and enough living and dining space that ten or twelve people are not falling over each other.

Dogs are welcome here, and groups have brought two at a time without any difficulty. The house itself is well suited to it: solid, roomy, and laid out so that a dog has somewhere to settle out of the way of a busy kitchen.

The one thing to plan around is the lack of enclosed outdoor space. There is no garden or yard to let a dog out into, and guests travelling with dogs have said plainly that a proper yard would have improved the stay. Every toilet trip is a walk on the lead. In practice that matters less than it sounds, because the location does the work: Skipton Woods is a short walk away and gives you a real wooded circuit, and the Leeds and Liverpool Canal towpath runs straight through the town centre, flat and long and easy in either direction. The castle, the market and a good number of cafes are all within a few minutes.

Two other things are worth knowing. Parking is on-street on a main road, so a large group with several cars will be spread along the street rather than parked at the door. And the boiler struggles when several of the bathrooms are used at once, which is worth a conversation about running order if you have somewhere to be. The owner is responsive and has sorted problems quickly when guests have raised them.

Best suited to a large family or group wanting a central Skipton base with a dog along, and comfortable walking the dog rather than opening a back door.