From the City of London, via the Thames Conservancy, the PLA inherited the conservancy, management and control of the river instead of ownership of the bed of the river and foreshore (the Crown was prohibited from alienating any of its lands by section 5 of the Crown Lands Act 1702, the Crown was presumed to own the bed of Thames and 'as conservators' the City of London were prohibited from owning any part of that same river bed) from Teddington to the Yantlet Line (between Southend and Grain).