Souvenir pieces were popular items in days of yore. Travelling salesmen would go from town to town with their supply of plates and pitchers and other items that they turned into local memorabilia. Tavistock has its fair share of souvenir items like this one featuring the stores and the Arlington Hotel on Woodstock Street North.

We often wonder what inspired the pictures for the souvenirs. In this case it may have been a postcard. If you check the Postcard section of this website and use the search box to easily find the postcard labelled “Woodstock Street North looking south” you’ll see the exact same scene.

Further proof is that both the postcard and the plate use the label Main Street rather than the definitive Woodstock Street.

We wonder if the person drawing the picture on the plate had ever been to Tavistock before he (almost always a man back then) came to sell his wares. Like many things in life, we’ll never know. We do know it’s a pretty plate and we hope he sold his full supply before moving on to the next town with a different souvenir for sale.