Though many of the ruins are on private property and aren't accessible to the public, we set out to capture a moment in time at four of the most compelling and fragile architectural reminders of a unique part of our regional past.

It's impossible to accurately consider Lowcountry ruins divorced from the context of their environments. Old Sheldon Church, just outside Beaufort, rests off a narrow country road in a grove of live oaks, surrounded by an ancient brick wall. First burned by British troops in 1799, the church was rebuilt in the Greek-temple style in 1826, only to be burned again by Sherman's troops in 1865.

What remains is the framework of the building set like a gemstone among ranks of brick columns. Preserved in their mystique, the ruins rest peacefully below arching live oak boughs, belying the double tragedy they endured.

Old Sheldon Church is a brick structure, though a number of Lowcountry ruins are constructed of tabby, a historically common concrete mixed from indigenous oyster shell, lime, sand, and water. As long as they are maintained, these structures are sound. But once deprived of protection, tabby slowly deteriorates.

Nearby, on St. Helena Island, the tabby remains of St. Helena's Chapel of Ease sit just off aptly named Land's End Road. Such "chapels of ease" were common on the Sea Islands, as it was more practical to ferry over one priest for services than to transport entire families to mainland parish churches.

Built around 1745, the chapel succumbed to an 1886 forest fire. The walls are intact, and surfaces above the windows remain, largely because they are arched and brick-reinforced.