Old Sheldon Church Ruins near Beaufort, SC

The ruins sit on Old Sheldon Church Road in Yemassee, SC 29945, in the Sheldon area of northern Beaufort County. There is no admission fee and no visitor center: you park on the unpaved lot across the road and walk over. There are no restrooms, so stop in Beaufort or Yemassee first.

This is still a churchyard, with graves among the oaks, so treat it as one: stay off the walls and the grave markers, keep voices down and take your trash with you. There are no posted visiting hours; go in daylight. Questions go to the Parish Church of St. Helena in Beaufort, whose office is open Monday to Thursday, 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., at (843) 522-1712.

The ruins are a favorite with photographers, and they are best in the low light of early morning or late afternoon, when the Spanish moss and the arches throw long shadows. Weddings are no longer held here: the ruins stopped hosting wedding ceremonies in 2015.

The church was built between 1745 and 1753 as Prince William’s Parish Church, a chapel of ease for families who lived too far from the parish church in Beaufort to get there on a Sunday. British troops burned it in 1779, during the Revolutionary War, and it was rebuilt in 1826.

The second loss came in 1865. The usual story is that Sherman’s army burned it on the march through South Carolina, but a letter written in February 1866 describes the church as torn up inside rather than burned, and its interior is thought to have been stripped for materials to rebuild homes nearby. Either way, it was never rebuilt again. The ruins were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970.

From Hilton Head it is about 46 miles from the bridges at the north end and about 53 miles from Coligny, roughly 70 to 80 minutes without traffic. From downtown Beaufort it is about 17 miles north on US 21, 25 minutes.

Most visitors fold it into a day trip to Beaufort: a morning downtown, then the ruins on the way home in the afternoon light. Penn Center on St. Helena Island and Hunting Island State Park are the other two stops worth the drive, and the beaches near Beaufort page covers where to swim.

Since 1925, clergy from the Parish Church of St. Helena in Beaufort have held a service at the ruins each spring, in the weeks after Easter. In 2025, the 100th year, it was a morning prayer service at 11 a.m. on Sunday, April 27, followed by a picnic: bring a chair and your own food and drink. The parish posts each year’s date on its website.