A tourist who visited China’s “fake British town” claims the £500m project would have been a perfect replica had it included one extra feature.
Ali Korsan headed to the Far East to take in Thames Town – named after the River Thames – which was built in 2006 in a bid to entice people away from Shanghai (30km away). Part of Songjiang New City, in the Songjiang District, the town is home to around 2,500 residents, although there is provision for a further 7,500 more to move in.
Thames Town’s architecture has been directly copied from British buildings including a church, a pub and a fish and chip shop. “The Chinese have copied Britain brick-by-brick,” Ali (@alikorsan_) began in a video shared to TikTok. “They even managed to copy the double yellow lines,” he continued, as he made his way down the street by foot.
“It does feel like you are in Britain, but something just doesn’t feel quite right,” Ali explained. “The town was built by a Chinese-British citizen and they spent half-a-billion pounds on this – a quarter of which was spent on importing its street lamps.”
Ali headed into a cobbled street shopping area, revealing the locals seem to be “obsessed with Carnaby Street”. Opening up on the only downside of his experience, he cursed: “I don’t really know why they have this shop here when it has no British goods at all – it’s like a lost opportunity I feel.”
Ali went onto joke that developers did manage to get the “murky waters spot on”, however, as he showcased a pond in the centre of the town. “You might be interested to know a lot of Chinese people have never seen a church so everyone here is completely gobsmacked,” he added, standing in front of the building that was modelled on on Christ Church, Clifton Down in Bristol.
“They have fake weddings here, which is quite cute,” he continued before turning his attention to a typical Thames Town street. “It does feel like you’re in Central London somewhere,” he said as he pointed out a KFC restaurant.
“Surprisingly enough they are still building more houses,” Ali continued, despite the number of surrounding vacant premises resembling somewhat of a “ghost town” in some areas.
“A lot of the places here are named after famous streets,” pointing out Oxford Street as an example – complete with Winston Churchill statue. A second statue, meanwhile, “immortalising Harry Potter” has also been erected “should you forget where you are”, closed Ali.
Scores of fellow Brits were quip to comment on other aspects separate Thames Town from the real thing. “The bit that’s ‘slightly off’ is too clean and has a survivable economy,” one TikTok user said in jest.
A second agreed: “Way too clean and the roads are intact, not very accurate.” A third commented: “You know it’s not the UK because everything is clean, and there are no clouds.” While a fourth added from experience: “I went to Thames Town once… such a strange place and so many bridal photos!”
According to Beijing-Visitor.com, Thames Town “acknowledges five hundred years of British architectural styles including Tudor half-timbered buildings, Victorian brick and Regency stone”.
It adds: “Thames Town was planned to provide homes for the staff of the universities at nearby Songjiang University Town – a massive educational hub with nine universities. However, many of the homes on offer were bought as second homes or as investments and not all of the housing is permanently occupied, though an epithet of ‘ghost town’ to describe Thames Town would be a bit harsh.”