Beyazıt Tower

This slender stone fire-watch tower stands within the grounds of Istanbul University on the third hill of the old city. Built in the 1820s under Sultan Mahmud II to replace an earlier wooden lookout, it rises around eighty-five metres and long served to spot the fires that periodically ravaged the timber-built metropolis. Its lantern at the top was later fitted with coloured lights used to signal weather forecasts to the city below. A prominent landmark near the Grand Bazaar, it recalls an age when watching for flames was a civic duty.