I tell visitors to Charleston who join my walking tours that many of the historic buildings they see in their travels around the city once had much different uses, and many for which they were not intended originally. Along scenic Ashley Avenue is a pre-Civil War chapel. The building was actually built in the 1820’s as a munitions storage shed for the United States Arsenal, which was located on this spot. After the Civil War, local clergyman Anthony Toomer Porter convinced Federal authorities to give him the property for use as a school for young men, which became Porter Military Academy. Porter changed the shed into St. Luke’s Chapel, which in recent times has been renamed St. Timothy’s Chapel, but no sign of ammunition inside these days. <img.src=”Charleston Architecture” alt=”St. Lukes Chapel”
