A UK street has captured the imagination of the nation after people learnt it was the shortest in the world. People pointed out that a London bus could be on two streets at the same time, given that Ebenezer Place measures at half the length of one.
The street is located in Wick, Scotland, and only has one address – a bistro restaurant which is attached to Mackays Hotel. The hotel stretches to the nearby Union Street and River Street, although its main entrance is on Union Street.
Ebenezer Place has been around since 1883, when the hotel was constructed. The owner was told to display a name on the shortest side of the hotel, and so put up the Ebenezer Place sign. Four years later, in 1887, it was officially declared a street and began appearing in town records, according to the Scottish Daily Express.
Many years later in October 2006, Guinness World Records finally declared it the shortest on Earth. The editor-in-chief of the book apparently “battled through gale-force winds and storms” to get to Wick to measure it, according to the hotel.
It took him “50 hours and several detours” to reach the small Scottish town – and just one hour later he officially deemed it the world’s shortest. The street is six feet and nine inches long – the exact same length as Tyson Fury if he was lying down.
Britain can be proud of its achievement, and even more so, as the previous record for the world’s shortest street was also here – this time in England. Elgin Street, in the Lancashire town of Bacup, is just 5.2 metres long (17 feet) and doesn’t allow vehicles into it because of a walkway and steps.
The second shortest in the world nowadays though is in the USA. McKinley Street in Bellefontaine, Ohio, has just one building and has a total length of 15 to 30 feet.
