The rock is recognized by Guinness as the smallest island in the world - Bishop

At low tide, the rock is exposed in the sea of ​​England, about 3 tennis courts.

The Guinness Book of World Records once recognized the "smallest island" for the Bishop, the westernmost of Scilly Islands, located off the coast of England. At low tide, it is 46 m long and 16 m wide, equal to about 3 tennis courts.

The above record is published based on the concept of an British island launched in 1861. Accordingly, the island is a plot of land or inhabited, or has enough grass in the summer for at least one sheep - area similar equivalent to more than 8 square meters.

In the Middle Ages, Bishop's rock was known as Men Epskop. Criminals are brought here with some bread, water enough for a few days and left for raging waves. But in 1847, a series of shipwrecks occurred in this sea, causing the royal family to order the erection of a lighthouse 50 meters higher on the island.

In the face of strong waves, the lighthouse filled the Bishop's rock. This is really a nightmare of the architects assigned to build this work. Builders used about 5,700 tons of granite to erect the lighthouse, without any modern means of transportation at that time.

Lighthouse on Bishop Rock Island. In ancient times, the lighthouse was lit by oil lamps and before that, candles, with light up to 24 knots. Today this light has a generator, battery and a helipad set up in 1976 - so visitors can land on top of the building instead of taking a boat. Photo: Trinity House.

A decade later, Bishop Rock's lighthouse was completed, and it even survived a storm with hurricanes. The lighthouse guards moved here in 1858, which meant that the place was already inhabited and became Britain's smallest island.

However, automatic lighting system has been installed since 1982. The lighthouse no longer needs a guard and the island also lost its world record from Guinness. Title the world's smallest inhabited island belongs to an island about 306 square meters wide, located in the middle of Alexandria Bay in New York (USA). However, the Guinness World Records organization still confirmed that Bishop Rock is the smallest island in the world with a building on it.