Rediscovering Charleston's Colonial Fortifications

A 1757 illustration of Lyttelton’s Bastion by its designer, William De Brahm

Lyttelton’s Bastion was perhaps the most sophisticated and expensive of all the fortifications built in colonial Charleston. Completed in 1757 and named for newly-arrived Royal Governor William Henry Lyttelton, this work was designed as a “middle bastion” on White Point between Granville’s Bastion and Broughton’s Battery. Its construction employed earth, wood, brick, and tabby, and included a pair of flanking moats and floodgates to harness the tidal waters. More importantly, it featured two levels of cannon platforms to maximize the firepower of its compact, geometric shape. In the end, however, these impressive elements caused William De Brahm’s ambitious fortification designs for Charleston to be both over budget and behind schedule, and De Brahm was sacked before the bastion was completed. It was then finished, and perhaps simplified, by his successor, the young engineer Emmanuel Hess.

If you’ve never heard of Lyttelton’s Bastion, perhaps you’ve encountered descriptions of it under another name. During the American Revolution, some of the older fortifications at Charleston’s White Point were renamed in honor of the commanders who were stationed there in the late 1770s and early 1780s. Lyttelton’s Bastion, for example, appears in maps of that era under the name “Darrell’s” or “Dorrill’s Fort,” because Capt. Edward Darrell was commandant of  the bastion and lived in or next to it. Like the rest of Charleston’s colonial fortifications, Lyttelton’s Bastion was dismantled, subdivided, and sold at auction in 1784–1785. The site was re-used in 1794 for the construction of Fort Mechanic, a smaller, simpler fortification that stood until 1818.

As impressive as the design and construction of Lyttelton’s Bastion sounds, it’s still very much a mystery. We are fortunate to have several good quality illustrations of it, drawn by British agents in the 1770s and 1780s, and we are very fortunate to have descriptions of its construction in the lone surviving manuscript Journal of the Commissioners of Fortifications. Unfortunately, however, Mr. De Brahm’s own written descriptions of the bastion’s dimensions and construction methods are rather muddled. It seems that his mastery of the English language was not as keen as his mastery of the art of military architecture. For that reason, it is difficult to reconcile the surviving illustrations of Lyttleton’s Bastion with the textual descriptions.

As always, I’ve been brainstorming about what this bastion looked like, or, more precisely, how its several parts and pieces functioned. If you’d like to learn more about De Brahm’s “middle bastion,” please join me for an illustrated lecture titled:

“A Brief History of Lyttelton’s Bastion, 1757–1785”

Wednesday, February 25th at 6 p.m.

2nd Floor Classroom, Charleston County Public Library, 29401.