Cezayirli Hasan Paşa House

Cezayirli Hasan Paşa House, locally known as Cezayirli Hasan Paşa Köşkü, lies north of the village of Üvecik, in the province of Çanakkale in Turkey.

Hasan Paşa was an 18th century Ottoman Grand Admiral. During his rise through the ranks of the Ottoman military hierarchy, he was based with Barbary Pirates in Algiers for some time. His title Cezayirli means "from Algiers" in Turkish.

In the 1770s Hasan Pasa had a mansion built, of which this fortified tower house was a part, in the village of Yerkesik overlooking the Batak Plain. He used it as a hunting lodge. He also had a canal dug from the village to the Beşik Bay to drain the marsh waters around the village to revive the area. The village itself had only newly been founded in the early 18th century but no trace of it remains today.

It is said that the tower house was used as a watch tower to control shipping in the Dardanelles Strait and to observe ships harboring in the Beşik Bay, where they waited for favorable winds before entering the Dardanelles. However, Cezayirli Hasan Paşa House is situated more than 2 kilometers from the sea and an even larger distance from Beşik Bay. Also it is not in a much elevated position, so I doubt that claim.

I don't know when or why the village disappeared or why the mansion was abandoned and fell to ruin.

At present Cezayirli Hasan Paşa House can freely be visited. There are, however, plans to restore the tower and turn it into a tourist attraction. As I like ruins, and seeing how some restorations in Turkey turned out in the past, I hope it will only be consolidated and stay like it is; a nice tower ruin with a forgotten feel about it.

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