At the beginning of the nineteenth century George Coad, a Methodist, had charge of the Donkey Mail from Plymouth to Saltash. Whilst on duty waiting for the ferry-boat on the Devon side, he gathered from the beach all the large stones he could carry and brought them across to deposit them three-quarters of the way up the steep incline of Lower Fore Street, where they were used to build Saltash's first Methodist Chapel in 1808.

The waterside was a busy area. Fishing and boat building revolved around the Town Quay, and the streets following the contours of the slopes were lined with two- and three- storey houses, many with ground-floor shops selling the local shellfish. This was the Saltash immortalised by the great artist J M W Turner, who produced two local paintings; one of the Hamoaze, with Saltash in the distance, and one of the Ferry Beach at Saltash in 1812. The latter painting features the old Passage House Inn (now The Boatman).

Fore Street was now the major thoroughfare in the town, although it is "situated on the declivity of a very steep hill, which (though the principal street) it is not easy to ascend on horseback", and the town was growing rapidly. The population of the borough rose from 1,150 in 1801 to 1,637 by 1831, and the 1830 Post Office directory for Saltash lists plumbers, ironmongers, butchers, bakers, drapers, shoemakers, tailors, grocers, and a druggist, as well as numerous shopkeepers, all working in the town.

In 1832, in an effort to regain some of the ferry passengers lost to Torpoint, a private company obtained an Act of Parliament for the purpose of purchasing the ferry rights of the Saltash Corporation, and established a new steam-powered 'floating bridge' ferry running along chains. A year or two later, however, the floating bridge was withdrawn for repairs, and the old 'horse boats', each rowed by two men, were put on again. This state of affairs continued for some time, and complaints arose that the higher tolls for the steam-powered ferry were still being charged for passage on the horse boats. The Corporation thereupon decided that the rights sold to the promoters of the Floating Bridge Act had lapsed and reverted to the Corporation. Accordingly, in 1833, they again put on their own horse boats at the original fare. Both the Corporation and those claiming under the Act proceeded to run rival horse boats until an arrangement was finally arrived at in 1839, by which the ancient ferry rights once more reverted to the Corporation.

Access to the ferry was greatly improved in 1834 by the building of New Road, a new turnpike road leading northwards. The area around the Town Quay was by this time packed with buildings, and the area around Sand Quay continued to develop, spurred on by the new access road. There was a ship yard, a quarry had been excavated into the cliffside on the western side of the new road, and there were limekilns at the water's edge. The waterside had in many respects developed its own identity, reinforced by the 1835 founding of the Saltash Regatta, which quickly became established as an important community event. By 1840 the first cottages had been built along New Road, on the eastern side, adjacent to the river. The town also began to expand further westwards, with a number of detached villas built on the roads to Callington and St Stephens, and a new building on Church Road erected in 1843 for the St Stephens National School.

In the Manor of Trematon, the ancient customs, suits, services, fealtys, heriots, etc. were actually still in existence until 1844, when an Act of Parliament was passed, and an award made under it, providing that a small fixed annual rent charge or commutation should be paid in future by the tenants in lieu of heriots and other uncertain customary payments.

Moving still further away from its medieval past and towards the technological future, Saltash was chosen as the site for the Cornwall Railway Company's new bridge across the Tamar, and the preparations for a bow and chain bridge with two spans began in 1848, to the design of Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

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