Beatrix Potter (1866-1943) is one of the world's best-loved children's authors and illustrators. She wrote the majority of the twenty-three Original Peter Rabbit Books between 1901 and 1913. The Tale of Peter Rabbit (Frederick Warne, 1902) is her most famous and best-loved tale.

Before her marriage in 1913, Beatrix Potter accompanied her family to Scotland, Wales or the Lake District for extended summer holidays and she often took the opportunity to sketch the places she visited. This study is dated 22nd July 1894, when Potter was staying at Lennel, Coldstream. She wrote in her journal entry for that day:

"Very hot. Sat on a wall all afternoon and sketched the river. I think it is a very beautiful stream and grows upon one. There is no impressive volume of water like the Tay, but it winds about in a sweet fashion, setting the meadows now on the north, now on the south and reflecting cliffs and trees in the deeper riches. All along the field edges there are strips of pebbles, many coloured, and a shelf of sandbank under the turf where sandmartins burrow. There are stockades of planks here and there, and the tangled grass in the trees shows what the flood can do in its time. At present it is very low, a mere ripple of water over the Ford below Lennel village. The Scotch raiders are said to have crossed that point to drive the English cattle, it is almost too peaceful now to accord with salmon nets."