Lacock is a tiny village that hasn’t changed much since the decline of the local wool industry and so many of it’s historic characteristics have been preserved. It’s a fascinating step into the past. The National Trust, we understand, now owns a lot of the village alongside the Abbey and is ensuring that it is well looked after.

Lacock Abbey allows dogs into the grounds, but not the building itself. It’s got a long, rich and interesting history that is worth reading up on, including being the the birthplace of photography! You can walk your pooch around the village, see the abbey from a far, the ancient church, and even Harry Potter’s fictional parent’s house (see below).

This dog-friendly little village is part of the Cotswolds and is as beautiful as you’d expect. It’s about an hour’s drive from Bristol, 40 minutes from Bath and 10 minutes from Chippenham. The perfect day trip if staying locally.

Our dog-friendly Lacock trip

We set out to do this lovely AllTrails route: Lacock Circular, but we ended up taking our poor little pooches on another route as we got lost, got stuck and got muddy. We haven’t made it public on AllTrails as we DO NOT recommend it (see below). The day was actually quite funny.

Error no. 1

Our first error was parking. Instead of parking in the National Trust car park we parked on one of the streets in the village. Due to the popularity of the little village, the locals ask people not to park there but in the designated car parks. Plus, it took us a while to find the start of the route and ended up on the wrong side of a fence and having to lift our dogs over. Absolutely hilarious as Sash has some lockdown weight to lose (thank you to my friend who took on the heavy lifting!).

Error no. 2

Our second error was to not follow the route once we were on it. The route takes you over a little bridge past the Abbey grounds, all very pretty, but does have some road walking without any pavement. So, we decided to detour to avoid the road. Note – on reflection we should have stayed on the route as the country roads are very quiet and there’s ample space for all to travel safely (apparently). Our detour took us along a path and over a fence into a field, which had some lovely views of the village and surrounding landscape. From here we decided to continue into a wood where we soon met a fence.

Error no. 3

Our third error was not turning back. We reasoned that we could walk through the forest and connect back to the route the other side. While not recommended, we and the dogs loved it. It was wild and untouched. The dogs were able to run about and smell all of the unusual smells. We on the other hand had fun jumping over rivers, climbing up mounds and getting stuck.

Our highlight was accidentally coming across two rather large and beautiful stags. We hadn’t noticed them and they startled us all when they suddenly shot through our line of sight. We put the dogs on the lead and avoided disturbing them any further. There were lots of wildlife in the forest. Another reason not to recommend this route for a dog walk!

The only way to get back to the route was to climb through some barbed wire fencing. You can imagine how much fun that was! We were all happy when we finally made our way back to the route on quiet country roads.

Error no. 4

Our final error was looking for ‘Harry Potter’s House‘ and being really confused when we arrived. After some research we realised that it wasn’t the house we expected and, unless you’re a serious Harry Potter fan, probably not worth the effort.

Dog-friendly places to eat

We visited Lacock while COVID restrictions were in place meaning that we didn’t get to eat there ourselves. However, when we go again we will eat at one of the following dog-friendly places:

• George Inn allow dogs in the garden and at the bar
• The Red Lion Pub allow dogs in the garden and the bar (not the conservatory restaurant)