The Mayor of Saltash is an important personage :he takes precedence of the Mayor of Plymouth , and by virtue of his office is also coroner for the borough of Plymouth .

The Saltash corporation has jurisdiction over the waters of Plymouth Sound and its tributaries , and derives a considerable revenue from the buoys which it maintains there in .
The Roman road , proceeding west from Exeter is a branch of the lcenhilde Way , crossed ' the Tamar at this point ; and the “ Statio Tamara ” of the Itineraries was no doubt at King ’s Tamerton , immediately above the river, on the Devonshire side.

The right of ferry at Saltash , temp . Edw.III ., was granted by the Black Prince , as Duke of Cornwall, during his delay at Plymouth in 1355 to a soldier who had been wounded in the French wars. See Sir Nicolas’s Hist, of Navy).
An excursion up the Tamar, as far as the Weir-head , and Morwell Rock's is one of the most interesting in the county. 
 Saltash is known for its fishermen, but more so for its fishwomen, who are celebrated for their prowess at the oar, and not unfrequently bear away the prizes at the different regattas.

It was an ancient borough previous to the Reform Bill

It is not long since Plymouth was accounted a mean fishing town 

Until the conveniency of the haven which without striking sail admitteth into its bosom the tallest ships that be where they ridesafe in either of the two rivers,  to take the opportunity of the first wind.

 Stuart Amos Arnold published an eighteenth-century navigation called The Merchant and Seaman’s Guardian in the British Channel.

In it he gave detailed instructions to navigate into the port using the ancient system of seamarks -

lining up landmarks by eye to chart a course through and past hazards In sailing into Plymouth take care of the Shovel and Tinker rocks ;  on the former is sixteen, on the latter seventeen feet.

The mark to sail in clear of them , is to keep Plymouth old church just open to the west of the citadel wall , sail in with this mark till you bring Withy hedge right up and down, and Drake’s island North West or open Mount Edgecombe , when you may anchor in six and seven fathom of coarse sand If bound for Hamoaze , take care of the Winter Rock on which there is a beacon that lies between Drake’s Island and the main landGo between the rock and east part of the islan, and give the island a good birth To clear the German Rock, which lies about two thirds of a cable’s length from the shore , and has a beacon on it ,as soon as you are abreast of the rock , which you will know by running the stone wall on Block-house point right up and down ,

steer over towards Mount Edgecombe till you open the Passagepoint and Blockhouse point; then haul over for Stone-pool , till you have hid Drake’s island behind Block-house point.

 And to clear Passage-rock , there is beacon on it bring Stone-house on the Old Gunwharf crane ; run that mark on till you bring a large fall-gate gate ,that is on the hill above the Passagehouse , and the highest chimnies on the Passage-house in one ; then steer safely in for Hamoaze , and anchor in thirteen, fourteen, or fifteen fathom, or less water at pleasure.

These directions give a glimpse into a lost landscape, where patches of willow were significant enough to be landmarks visible from the Sound.

Once moored, what might the merchant expect on arrival ? A number of travel writers described seventeenth-century Plymouth, among them Celia Fiennes in her epic journey

Through England on a Side Saddle in the Time of William and Mary in 1698.

She was delighted by the appearance of the local stone , which she referred to as ‘marble’ which made Plympton ‘look white like snow’.

From there she rode down the banks of the River Plym to the town itself.

Plymouth is two parishes called the old town and the new, the houses all built of this marble and the slatt [slate] at the top look like lead and glisters in the sun; there are no great houses in the town;
the streets   OH! are good and clean, there is a great many though some are narrow ; they are mostly inhabited by seamen and those which
have altaiies on the sea, for here up to the town there is a depth of
water for shipps of the first rate to ride ;

its great sea and dangerous

ST. GERMANSAugustinian was the seat of a bishop in early times.The bishops of the Celtic churches were not hke those of the English; their sphere influence was not defined in the same way.In Ireland a bishop often lived in a monastic settlement and was inferior in rank to Abbot.In Cornwall the Bishop of St. Germans was probably the head of a monastery.Whether his jurisdiction extended over the whole of modern Cornwall, or whether there were not other bishops—at Bodmin, for instance—in the quite early days, is not clear. The first bishop who is named is one Conan, in AthelStan’s time (in 936), but he will not have been actually the first. The laSt was Burhwold. In 1050 the old See of St. Germans was united with Exeter by Edward the Confessor, and Bishop Leofric, who had formerly had Crediton for his See, moved thither. He is said to have placed canons in St. Germans.But it was Bartholomew, Bishop of Exeter in Henry II’s time, who made it a Priory of AuguStinian Canons.So it continued till the Suppression, when its annual value was somewhat under £250.The church has a certain cathedral flavour about it, in that it has two western towers; one is Norman, with an oCtagonal top of the thirteenth century.The other, the southern, has Norman base and Perpendicular upper Storey.Between them is a fine late Norman door.The nave has two Norman piers on the south side, and a Norman font is in the south tower.The original north aisle was pulled down in 1803 and replaced by the pew of the Eliots—the house of Port Eliot is immediately beside the church. The description in the Beauties of "England and Wales (Britton and Bray- ley; this volume was issued in 1801) is rather unwontedly minute and careful.I will quote a good part of it, and the visitor may be interested in comparing it with what he sees now. After describing the western arch it says : “ Over the arch is a pediment with a cross at the top resembling an heraldic cross patee within a circle; on each side is a small pointed window, and above these are three small narrow round-headed windows. [Above these is the main western gable.]“ The north aisle is divided from the nave by five short thick round columns, each connected with a half-pillar opposite to it in the north wall, by a low surbased arch.All the capitals of the columns are square, and curiously ornamented with Saxon (i.e. Norman) sculpture. The third from the weSt end is embellished with grotesque figures having bodies resembling dogs, opposed to each other, with their fore parts meeting at the angle of the capital in one head ;the upper part human, but the lower like a scollop-shell.Above these range six plain arches, some of them apparently of the same age and Style with those in the nave of St. Alban’s Abbey Church, Hertfordshire.“ In several windows of the aisle are a few coats of arms on painted glass.“ The architecture of the south aisle is very dissimilar from that on the