The clock tower of Xanthi is what remains of a mosque that once stood at the centre of the old town. When the mosque burned in 1941, the stone minaret survived while the wooden structure collapsed. It was repurposed as a clock tower and has stood as a landmark of the upper town ever since. The tower is visible from much of Xanthi and serves as a useful orientation point when walking the old town's lanes.
Its dual heritage — Ottoman religious architecture repurposed as a secular civic monument — makes it a fitting symbol of Xanthi itself, a city where the Greek, Ottoman, and Bulgarian layers of Thracian history are layered rather than erased. The Atlas Obscura entry notes this history of the structure. Xanthi's Muslim minority community, still significant today, holds the mosque's memory alongside the Greek community that gave the tower its clock.