 The Chelsea Waterworks Company occupied a site on the north bank of the Thames opposite the Red House Inn . Founded in 1723 , the company pumped water from the Thames to reservoirs around Westminster through a network of hollow elm trunks . As London spread westwards , the former farmland to the west became increasingly populated , and the Thames became seriously polluted with sewage and animal carcasses . In 1852 Parliament banned water from being taken from the Thames downstream of Teddington , forcing the Chelsea Waterworks Company to move upstream to Seething Wells . 
