The Shell Builders

Tabby Architecture of Beaufort, South Carolina, and the Sea Islands

Colin Brooker

• Publisher: University of South Carolina Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781643365909, 9781643360713
• eBook ISBN: 9781643360720
• Topic: Architecture
• Subtopic: Architecture General

A comprehensive study of the oyster shell building material of the South Carolina Lowcountry

Beaufort, South Carolina,is well known for its historical architecture, but perhaps none is quite as remarkable as those edifices formed by tabby, sometimes called coastal concrete, comprising a mixture of lime, sand, water, and oyster shells. Tabby itself has a storied history stretching back to Iberian, Caribbean, Spanish, and African roots—brought to the United States by merchants, military engineers, planters, and enslaved people.

Colin Brooker, architect and expert on historic restoration, has not only made an exhaustive foray into local tabby architecture and heritage but also a multinational tour in search of tabby origins, evolution, and diffusion from the Bahamas to Morocco to Andalusia, which can be traced back as far as the tenth century. Brooker has spent more than thirty years investigating the origins of tabby, its chemistry, its engineering, and its limitations. The Shell Builders presents a sweeping, indepth, and fascinating investigative journey—at once archaeological, sociological, and historical—into the ways prior inhabitants used and shaped their environment to house and protect themselves, leaving behind an architectural legacy that is both mysterious and beautiful.

Lawrence S. Rowland, Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History at the University of South Carolina Beaufort and past president of the South Carolina Historical Society, provides a foreword.

Table of contents

• Cover
• The Shell Builders
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Old World Antecedents and Their Diffusion
• 2 Tabby in Military Building of the Southeast Atlantic Coast
• 3 Tabby Making: Materials and Fabrication
• 4 Tabby Construction Details and Operational Procedures
• 5 Tabby Brick, Wattle and Daub, and Cements
• 6 Tabby Building in Beaufort Town, South Carolina
• 7 Tabby in the Domestic Architecture of the Sea Islands before the American Revolution
• 8 Slave Dwellings, Settlements, and the Quest for Rural Improvement
• 9 Workplaces and Gardens: Processing and Storage Facilities
• 10 Chapels and Cemeteries
• Epilogue: A Legacy of the Loyalists?—Tabby in the Bahamas
• Appendix: Notes on Selected Sources
• Notes
• Select Bibliography
• Index