The British ran a military prison in the cellar of Charleston's custom house.
The Old Exchange and Provost Dungeon stands at the northeast corner of East Bay and Broad Streets in Charleston, South Carolina. South Carolina's provincial government built it between 1767 and 1771, and through the 18th century it served as a customs house, a public market, a public meeting place and a jail, all in the same building.
Its revolutionary history is dense. Confiscated tea was stored here in 1774, and the Provincial Congress of South Carolina met here the same year. Then from 1780 to 1782 the British used the Exchange as a barracks and a military prison, which is where the Provost Dungeon in the name comes from.
The building itself is worth reading from the street. It is two storeys of masonry on a high brick basement under a hipped roof with a cupola. The main facade faces west, with a projecting three-bay gabled centre, entrances recessed into three round-arched openings below, and sash windows above set in bays articulated by Ionic pilasters. Each flanking wall carries a Palladian window on a brick base with a balustrade.
It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1973 and is on the National Register of Historic Places, whose South Carolina record carries a full set of elevation photographs if you want to study it before you arrive.
It is now a museum run by the Daughters of the American Revolution. The cellar is the part people come for, and it is worth remembering that the men held in it were prisoners of a war fought in the streets outside.
Other places on the map within a couple of hours.
