Hay's Way: Katharine has made her way to the shortest street in the world in Scotland

Katharine speaks to Murray Lamont, the owner of Mackays Hotel which is the only business on the shortest street in the world

Transcript

00:00Hello, I've made it to Wyck, which is home to the shortest streets in the world, according

00:25to the Guinness Book of World Records. So I'm just standing in front of Mackay's Hotel,

00:30which sits on the street that measures just six foot, nine inches long. And I'm just going

00:35to go inside and talk to the owner, Mario Lamont, whose family have been running this

00:41hotel and who've owned it for the last, well, almost 70 years. They're celebrating their

00:4670th anniversary next year. And yeah, just interested to hear how much of a draw this

00:54quite bizarre world record has. I gather it was given in 2006, so almost 20 years ago.

01:02But it seems I've just seen in the last few minutes, quite a few people going and standing

01:06in the doorway, which is the entrance to a bistro that's part of the hotel.

01:10I'm Mario Lamont. I'm part of the family that's been here in Mackay's Hotel for nearly 70

01:16years. And we're standing on the smallest street in the world, as in the Guinness Book

01:22of World Records. Six feet, nine inches wide. It's the smallest street, and it's called

01:29Ebenezer Place. And Ebenezer means kind, caring, looking after you. And I hope that's what

01:35we do in Mackay's Hotel here in Wick. The hotel was built in 1883 and was originally

01:44had different names before it was Mackay's. It was also the Temperance Hotel. Wick was

01:49dry until 1947. The heavy drinking days of the herring boom forced the town, they took

01:58a vote, and the town was voted dry and went wet again in 1947. Wick, this was the Temperance

02:07Hotel in those days. The Mackay sisters took it over in the early 50s, and it was renamed

02:14Mackay's Hotel. And my family came in 1955. And during the war, it was commandeered by

02:22the RAF, and they used it as their base and a place for their personnel to stay. Today,

02:31Mackay's Hotel is a very different kettle of fish. We have our restaurant number one

02:36bistro situated on the smallest street in the world, where we specialise in good local

02:41food, fresh food, wherever we can. And the hotel itself has 30 bedrooms, a bit more modern

02:48than they used to be. A very comfortable hotel. We also have a function suite that can seat

02:53up to 150 guests for various types of sporting dinners, weddings, and other sort of functions.

03:00We've got a lot of visitors. Wick's a very popular place for the history here. And the

03:05street, there's people coming all times of day and night to get their photo taken in

03:10the smallest street in the world.