Guide
The clock tower stands on the castle in the middle of the valley where the historic buildings of Safranbolu are gathered. It was built between 1794 and 1797 by İzzet Mehmet Paşa, grand vizier to Selim III and himself a native of Safranbolu. Among the clock towers in the country it is the oldest that still works and that can be climbed.
The oldest building on the castle, it is a plain structure on a square plan of 4.65 by 4.65 metres, twelve metres high, with stone walls and a ridged roof. Its single door is on the side facing the old prison.
The clock room, reached by a stair that climbs straight up, has two rectangular windows on each of its four sides, and the inside is lit through arrow slits. Wound once a week, the clock has run without a break for more than two hundred years, driven by two weights of 109 and 60 kilograms. The outer dial is 1.20 metres across.
The tower was restored in 1998 and 1999 by the Safranbolu vocational school of Karabük University, with funds from the special provincial administration of the Karabük governorate. The clock was looked after by the master craftsman Rıfat Conkoğlu and, from 1965, by the shoemaker İsmail Ulukaya.
The clock tower is open together with the city history museum every day except Monday, from 9.00 to 17.30.
