The neatest thing you'll never see

Decades after the College of Charleston moved its graduation to the yard in front of Randolph Hall known as "the Cistern," someone bothered to ask if its structure actually could support a stage.

That's how Craig Bennett's adventure began.

When most college students and locals think of the Cistern, they likely think of the two-foot-tall concrete oval with grass and a narrow brick path on top.

But that's just the small bit above ground.

About two feet underneath it lies a vast series of brick arches designed to hold as much as 40,000 gallons of rainwater captured from the roof of Randolph Hall.

Bennett, as a structural engineer with 4SE Inc., has worked on the Cistern directly for the college and as part of a team led by architects Cummings & McCrady, Inc. His job was to take a look underneath to see how the structure has held up since it was built about 150 years ago.

It wasn't a job for claustrophobes or for the obese.

Photo Gallery

The Cistern

Everyone familiar with the College of Charleston knows where its cistern is: It's one of the campus' most prominent features. But very few have seen what it looks like underground. For such views, click here.

Bennett had to strap on a harness and hold his hands over his head while he was lowered through the 18-inch wide manhole. But first, college officials had to pump out the approximately five feet of standing water down there and then run a blower to fill it with fresh air.

The only living thing down there in recent years has been a smattering of cockroaches.

"I don't think anything else could survive down there," Bennett says. "There were some glass bottles down there, some of them broken, that appear to have washed off the roof of the building."

Aside from those bottles and a coating of mud on the floor, Bennett found few other problems.

The structure is about 6 feet 6 inches tall and consists of four vaults, each measuring about 6 feet in width and 31 feet in length. The four vaults are interconnected with a series of lower arches, and there's an overflow opening almost 6 feet up to ensure it never backs up.

"It's a handsome piece of architecture," Bennett says. "It's in absolutely gorgeous condition. All the vaulting is in great condition, and even the stucco is in good condition."

Bennett doesn't know why these underground vaults were capped with an elevated oval; perhaps it kept animals from relieving themselves on top, tainting the water's quality.

The Cistern's origin apparently has as much to do with solving a problem inside Randolph Hall than providing the college and its neighbors with fresh water.

Robert Stockton, who has studied the Cistern and surrounding buildings, says the city had talked about building a cistern for some time before it finally took action in 1856.

"The problem was when they expanded the main building (Randolph Hall) and built the library, it caused so much water runoff that the basement of the main building was flooding," Stockton says. "They needed some place for all that water to go."

He says city records show the work cost $1,116.19 (in late Antebellum dollars) and used about 54,400 bricks, 48 casks of lime, 45 casks of cement and 1,248 feet of lumber.

The city had built a modern water system well before the 1930s, when the college moved its graduations there. And the grassy space gradually has assumed the name as the cistern in its center.

The college soon might start using the water collected as a secondary irrigation source for the campus, says Monica Scott, the college's vice president for facilities planning.

And that's fine with Bennett, as long as he doesn't have to go back down there anytime soon.

"The worst part was that the harness shredded as I was being brought back up," he says. "It caught on something and tore and left me hanging by one leg. I had to wonder if the other side was going to tear, too.

"It was not a pleasant ride."

Robert Behre may be reached at 937-5771 or by fax at 937-5579. His e-mail address is rbehre@postandcourier.com, and his mailing address is 134 Columbus St., Charleston, SC 29403.