Visitors still flock to shortest street in the world
roughly the length of a pool table, the world’s shortest street takes up a wee spot in the corner of the north of Scotland.
A hop, skip and a jump and you’re already finished walking down Ebenezer Place in Wick, Caithness. The tiny street measures 6ft 9in and spans the width of the entrance to No.1 Bistro, which is part of Mackays Hotel, the only business there is room for.
Owner Murray Lamont says enthusiasm for the location continues, almost 20 years after it gained global recognition.
Pointing to the doorway, the only one on the street, Mr Lamont said: “Every few minutes we see people standing in there taking a photo, all day and into the night. It’s still a hugely popular place for visitors.”
Mr Lamont’s family will be celebrating 70 years next year since they took over the hotel in 1955.
There used to be a webcam and, in in the days before video calling, visitors would tell relatives abroad to look at the webcam link online to see them standing in the world’s shortest street.
Staff at the hotel say people still book a room for a night or a table for lunch in the bistro especially to make an occasion out of visiting the spot.
The world title came about after Mr Lamont put a bid in, supplying all the right documentation to prove the size and validity of the street, which is comfortably shorter than the world’s tallest person.
Craig Glenday, editor-in-measuring chief of the Guinness Book of World Records at the time of the award, battled through storms on a trip up from London that took him 50 hours just to see the street himself.
The street’s history goes back more than 100 years.
The hotel was built in 1883 by Alexander Sinclair, whose family owned land in Caithness.
The council at the time deemed the short edge of the hotel as a new street, and instructed mr sinclair to name it. Ebenezer Place appeared in the town’s records from 1887. Mr Lamont said when visitors first see the name Ebenezer, they think of the Charles Dickens character Ebenezer Scrooge, from A Christmas Carol.
Not entirely sure what inspired the name for the landowner, Mr Lamont said Mr Sinclair was a religious man, and Ebenezer is a biblical name and has Hebrew origins meaning “stone of the help”.
The building has always been a hotel, but it has had a string of different names before it became Mackays.
It also had a dry spell when, under the Temperance (Scotland) Act of 1913, which was a UK parliament act that allowed voters in small areas of Scotland to decide whether to prohibit alcohol in their area, the people of Wick decided to stop drinking from 1922 to 1947.
The street joins a handful of other Guinness Book of World Record holders in Scotland. These include The Star Hotel in Moffat – the narrowest in the world; The world’s most expensive sheep, Double Diamond, sold in Lanark for £367,500; and the largest haggis, made in North Berwick, which weighed 1,010kg.
Every few minutes we see people standing taking a photo