People taking a quiet stroll through the mock Tudor streets in this town, stepping inside its bright red telephone boxes and wandering the cobbled streets looking for the nearest pub, could be excused to think they were on a mini-break in a pretty English village. Thames Town looks like it should be in the Cotswolds, as it is so quaint and pretty. In fact, some of its buildings were modelled on the Dorset seaside town of Lyme Regis, although this town is actually 5,700 miles away from Britain.

Indeed, Thames Town cannot be found in England but, in fact, in China. In Songjiang, just outside Shanghai, Thames Town was built as part of a programme called One City, Nine Towns. Each of the towns on the city’s outskirts was created in a different international style. It’s not unusual for distinctive architectural looks from abroad to be seen in China. The country also has its own versions of the Eiffel Tower, Stonehenge, London’s Tower Bridge and the Austrian alpine village of Hallstatt.

Thames Town was planned by Tony Mackay, a UK architect, who was hired in 2001 to give the area that authentic British feel.

But Mackay told BBC News back in 2013 that he wasn’t happy with the finished product, saying, “It doesn’t look quite right.”

He aimed for a traditional look that was more synonymous with a Cotswold village, but in the end, he felt that elements such as six-storey Tudor buildings and the wrong stones and window proportions in the church left it looking more like a film set.

Thames Town was completed in 2006, it is named after the River Thames. The architecture is themed according to British market towns styles. There are cobbled streets, Victorian terraces, corner shops and red telephone boxes.

Unfortunately high house prices led to few permanent residents moving to the area and in more recent times the ambitious but flawed project has become something of a ghost town.

Situated 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) from the Songjang New City Station, the development, intended to draw population away from central Shanghai. One of the objectives for Thames Town was to provide accommodation for the staff of the new universities in adjacent Songjang Unversity Town.

Thames Town occupies an area of 1 square kilometre (0.39 sq mi) and designed for a population of 10,000. It cost around £530million to build.

Some of the architecture has been directly copied from buildings found in England, including the church (modelled on Christ Church in Clifton Down in Bristol and the pub, and fish and chip shop are copied from buildings in Lyme and Chester.

Today, Thames Town is a popular destination for newly married couples who like it as the backdrop for their wedding snaps.

However British architecture writer Jonathan Glancey described it as "a grotesque, and extremely funny parody of an olde English town seen through Chinese eyes, and built by canny British developers."

It is however a viral success with tourists flocking to see it despite the project’s lack of success locally and reputation as ‘bad urban planning’ by the critics.

Secret London said: "You’ll find yourself surrounded by classic English gardens, public squares, and a waterfront area. There’s stunning Victorian and Georgian-style architecture dotted all around town for impressive immersion that’s proper British, innit?"