Wrong picture postcards of Plymouth withdrawn from WH Smith

Customer Benjamin Barton said Plymouth had not had a pier since the Plymouth Blitz

Postcards of Plymouth in a WH Smith store in the city have been removed after it emerged pictures on the postcard were not of Plymouth.

Benjamin Barton noticed the errors when he was shopping for a postcard for his sister who lives in Sheffield, ahead of her visit to Plymouth, he first told Plymouth Live.

Mr Barton realised the images "weren't quite accurate".

WH Smith apologised for the mistake and has withdrawn the postcards.

The images used show a harbour, a pier, a donkey and a crowded beach but it is not clear which locations they show.

Mr Barton said: "To give her [his sister] something to look forward to I went off looking for a postcard.

"One that might have had Smeaton's Tower on it or the fireworks, I went in there and it was not quite accurate."

He said he "hadn't got the foggiest idea" why these pictures were chosen to represent Plymouth.

"She would come down here and be given a false impression of what to expect," he said.

"We've got a dozen beaches in our city and not one of them looks like that.

"Surely the person that would have designed the postcards would have realised that those photos would be spotted as not being in Plymouth."

Mr Barton decided against sending a postcard to his sister

Mr Barton said he found the situation amusing, and informed a member of staff, who was also "taken aback".

A history enthusiast, Mr Barton passed the photos of the postcards on to the history department at the University of Plymouth, which collects postcards for historical significance.

Mr Barton said he thought the bottom right image was Weymouth, in Dorset, and the top right was Weston-super-Mare, in Somerset.

In a statement, a WH Smith spokesperson said: "We apologise to customers in our Plymouth store for this error.

"We have removed these postcards from sale and are looking into this with our supplier."