Discover world’s smallest prison that consists of only two tiny cells!

The Island of Sark, the smallest of the Channel Islands located between France and England, is home to the world’s smallest prison still in use today: a tiny building with only two cells, dating back to the year 1856!
The small island has a population of around 600 people living a secluded but fulfilling life.
It first appeared in text in the 11th century when it was given as a gift to Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey from William of Normandy.
Later the French captured the island in the 16th century, then followed by the English later on.
The island often was a site for smugglers and pirates throughout history while, during WWII, the Germans occupied the island as a part of the sea defense against the Nazis.
After the war, the island settled into a rustic feel with old-world charm, accessible by boat only still today.
The only way to get around is by walking, biking, horse-drawn carriage, or by horseback, and It’s one of the only places in the world where emergency vehicles are pulled by tractors or horses!

Well, on Sark Island there are no cars, no roads and no streetlights but yes, a prison is.
Featuring just two tiny cells, one measuring 1,8 meters by 1,8 meters and the other 1,8 meters by 2,4 meters, separated by a narrow corridor, It’s only fitting that an island measuring just under 5 kilometers long and 1.6 kilometers wide be home to the world’s smallest prison.
The two cells only have small, wood-slatted beds with thin mattresses for inmates to sleep on.
Interestingly, they can only be held here for a maximum of two days, after which they have to be transferred to the larger prison facilities on the neighboring Guernsey Island.
The prison that stands today was not the original prison, as the first one was built to defend the island against invasion soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, when It was necessary to create a place to hold captives and enemy prisoners.
Life on the island, when trouble occurred, mostly ended with the accused in the stocks rather than in a jail cell, in front of a public, where they would throw objects such as food or rocks from dawn to dusk. Other forms of punishment delivered would be to sit on the Penance Bench sentenced by the Island Consistory Court made up of elders of the Presbyterian Church.
It seems the Guernsey Courts ordered a new prison to be built in 1832, because the original one was deemed unfit.
However, due to budget constraints, it took over two decades simply to begin construction of the new holding facility, completed in 1856 and in operation ever since.
Even if law enforcement on the island doesn’t get crime reports very often, the prison is still operational and the cells do get occupied by the occasional out-of-control tourists or inebriated local.

Either way, most famous inmate at Sark Prison was Andres Gardes, an unemployed French nuclear physicist who believed himself to be the rightful heir and owner of the island itself.
Since no one took his claims seriously, it was 1990 when he decided to invade the island as a one-man army, plastering the island with posters announcing his invasion and so, when he finally arrived on Sark with a semiautomatic rifle, he was punched in the face by the Constable on duty and disarmed, effectively and quickly ending the conflict.
Of course he was arrested, and his invasion thwarted.
The gun he used can be viewed still today in the Sark Museum, while the Sark Prison is located right next to the visitor center in the center of the island.

Images from web – Google Research