Beyond the Big House Tour

Event Details

Step inside the back buildings and former work lots of Charleston's private houses during the second annual Beyond the Big House Tour, 1-4 p.m., presented by The Slave Dwelling Project, Historic Charleston Foundation and the Charleston Gaillard Center. Kitchens, carriage houses, slave dwellings and even churches where the enslaved worshiped have survived to tell the stories of African Americans in early Charleston, their lives and immense contributions to the fabric of our city. The Charleston Gaillard Center, where the tour will begin, stands between two historically significant early neighborhoods, Mazyck-Wraggborough and Ansonborough, separated by Calhoun Street. Now in the heart of Downtown, the earlier name for the thoroughfare, Boundary Street, represents a time when the road defined the northern edge of Charleston. In addition to private sites rarely open to the public, the outbuildings of the Aiken-Rhett House Museum, c.1820, which have been preserved as found, are included on the tour.

"When the buildings remain on the landscape, it's hard to deny the presence of the people who lived in them," says Joseph McGill, founder of The Slave Dwelling Project.