The only written description of this species natural history in Britain comes from the journal of Giraldus Cambrensis who recorded their presence on the Welsh river Teivi in 1188.  In 1577 William Harrison the Canon of Windsor stated that “I wortherilie doubt whether that of our beavers or marterns may be thought to be the lesse”. Harrison’s description was however part of a survey of animals to be found at that time in Britain and he goes on to describe the beaver in the following manner:

“...the tail of this beast is like vnto a thin whetstone as the bodie vnto a monstrous rat: the beast also it selfe is of such force in the teeth, that it will gnaw a hole through a thick planke, or shere through a dubble billet in a night; it loueth also the stillest riuers”

Bolton Percy a village near York is connected by the rivers Wharfe and Washburn to a site called Oak Beck near Harrogate, where the place names beaver dyke and beaver hole still remain.