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- source: Getty Thesaurus of Geographic Names
- source: Family History Library Catalog
- the following text is based on an article in Wikipedia
Saltash is a town and civil parish in Cornwall, England. It lies in the southeast of Cornwall, facing Plymouth over the River Tamar. Saltash is known as "the gateway to Cornwall". The word means "ash tree by the salt mill". Saltash is the largest town within the East Cornwall area and is one of the largest in Cornwall. It had a population of 14,964 according to the 2001 census.
Saltash became a municipal borough in 1885 and continued as such until the municipal reorgaization of 1974. In 1934 it absorbed the parish of St. Stephen's by Saltash from St. Germans Rural District. Prior to 1885 it was an "ancient borough" in East Hundred and an urban sanitary district. From 1974 until 2009 it was in the Caradon district. In March 2009 Cornwall became a unitary authority.
Saltash is the location of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Royal Albert Bridge, opened by HRH Prince Albert on 2 May 1859. It takes the railway line across the River Tamar. Alongside it is the Tamar Bridge, a toll bridge carrying the A38 trunk road, which in 2001 became the first suspension bridge to be widened whilst remaining open to traffic.
A Vision of Britain through Time provides the following description of Saltash from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72:
- "SALTASH, a town, a chapelry, and a sub-district, in St. Germans district, Cornwall. The town stands on the estuary of the Tamar, at the W end of Albert bridge, and at the junction of the South Devon, the Cornwall, and the Saltash and Callington railways, 3 miles N W by N of Devonport; was anciently a place of much importance, but went into decline; owed part of its importance to its being one of the passes into Cornwall; was the seat of assizes for the county in the 14th century; was occupiedalternately by the parliamentarians and the royalists in the civil wars of Charles II.; acquired a borough charterin the time of Henry III.; sent two members to parliament from the time of Edward VI till 1832, when it was disfranchised; is governed, under a charter of George III., by a mayor, a recorder, and six aldermen; under-went revival at the railway epoch, in connexion with the building and the opening of Albert bridge; has, since that time, undergone much improvement and extension; consists partly of old streets, picturesquely grouped on the steep acclivities of a rocky eminence, partly of new streets, on a new site, at Port-View; carries on malting, fishing, and a coasting trade; and has a head post-office, designated Saltash, Cornwall, a [railway] station with telegraph, a hotel, an old town hall built on pillars, a mechanics' institute with library, an ancient church with massive tower, a Baptist chapel in the early English style built in 1866, a Wesleyan chapel, national schools, charities £21, markets on Tuesdays and Saturdays, great markets on the Tuesdays before quarter days, and cattle fairs on 2 Feb. and 25 July. The chapelry is regarded as conterminate with the town, and is in the parish of St. Stephen-by-Saltash. Real property: £3,759. Population: in 1851, 1,621; in 1861: 1,900. Houses: 275. The living is a [perpetual] curacy in the diocese of Exeter. Value, £100. Patrons, the Executors of Sir R. S. Hawks.
- "The sub-district contains all St. Stephen parish, and six other parishes. Acres: 24,464. Population: 6,240. Houses: 1,189.
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