 The city authorities appointed keepers of the conduits who controlled access so that users such as brewers, cooks and fishmongers would pay for the water they used.Wealthy Londoners living near the conduit pipe could obtain permission for a connection to their homes, but this did not prevent unauthorised tapping of conduits.Otherwise – particularly for households which could not take a gravity-feed – water from the conduits was provided to individual households by water carriers or "cobs".