Today we cycled around and looked at the beautiful buildings Charleston is renowned for. Many of them are the ‘Single Houses’ that lie perpendicular to the road and have side porches called ‘Piazzas’. The reason for this is unclear but most likely is that the limited space on the peninsular dictated small, narrow plots and house designs of a single room wide. The side porches adopted to make the most of the shade and breeze that circulates between the houses. Many also have a ‘front door’ from the street that only accesses the porch, with the real front door on the porch itself. Custom was that if the street door was open, visitors were welcome.

We also looked a t few larger homes facing the street, and of course, the Cathedral. Always improved by palm trees I find!

Our other interesting fact, there is a main road that crosses the peninsular called Broad Street. Those that live South of Broad street are referred to as SOBs. This we learned from a man his son from whom we asked directions. A local man, he had been an undergraduate at Pembroke College, Oxford, his favourite memory: The Lamb and Flag on St Giles!

Final stop was Catfish Row, the area of town immortalised in the controversial Gershwin ‘opera’ Porgy and Bess. It was based on the novel ‘Porgy’ by DuBose Heyward who lived nearby. The character Porgy was also based on a real character, a crippled beggar called Samuel Smalls who couldn’t walk after a childhood accident and rode around in a cart pulled by a goat. He was notorious for his drinking, gambling and recourse to violence and died under suspicious circumstances. Some say he was killed by voodoo and that is why he is buried north-to-south rather than the normal east-to-west, the convention for those who die an unrepentant sinner!