Lyme pub and chippy are Shanghaied!

11:14am Friday 18th August 2006

REPLICAS of a Lyme Regis pub and its neighbouring chippy have been included in an English-themed town being built 6,000 miles away in China.

The Rock Point Inn and the adjoining Cobb Gate Fish Bar are now part of Thames Town - a huge new development near Shanghai.

The new community has been designed to house some of the 400 million people expected to move from rural areas of China to the cities in the next 15 years.

The English-themed town, which will open in October, features cobbled streets, mock Tudor houses and English style boutiques.

There is even a mock castle and sandstone church based on a Bristol chapel.

British consultant engineers and town planners WS Atkins have squeezed 500 years of English history into the five-year construction project.

Developers are also hoping to attract British retailers like Sainsbury and Tesco.

Gail Caddy, owner and landlady of the Lyme Rock Point Inn and proprietor of the fish and chip shop next door, said she was very flattered that that her buildings had been chosen for the Chinese town - although no one had told her that they were going to do it.

"We were amazed when we saw pictures of it in the Daily Mail, " she said.

"We've been shanghaied!"

After 23 years of work to enhance her properties she said she was delighted they had been recognised as being a unique part of the English street scene - one of the only pub and chip shop combinations on a river mouth by the sea.

"It's unique," she said.