There are 70 extant churches and places of worship in the district of Lewes, one of five local government districts in the English county of East Sussex. A further 21 former places of worship are no longer in religious use. The area now covered by the district is mainly rural and characterised by small villages with ancient parish churches. The riverside market town of Lewes, the port of Newhaven and the seaside towns of Seaford, Peacehaven and Telscombe Cliffs are the main urban areas and have higher concentrations of religious buildings.
Most residents of the district identify themselves as Christian, and there were no places of worship serving any other religious groups until a mosque and Islamic community centre opened in Seaford in 2017. Many Christian denominations are represented—the town of Lewes in particular has a long-established history of Protestant Nonconformism—but the majority of churches serve the Church of England community.
Historic England or its predecessor English Heritage have awarded listed status to 43 of Lewes district's current and former places of worship. A building is defined as "listed" when it is placed on a statutory register of buildings of "special architectural or historic interest" in accordance with the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, a Government department, is responsible for this; Historic England, a non-departmental public body, acts as an agency of the department to administer the process and advise the department on relevant issues. There are three grades of listing status. Grade I, the highest, is defined as being of "exceptional interest"; Grade II* is used for "particularly important buildings of more than special interest"; and Grade II, the lowest, is used for buildings of "special interest".
Overview of Lewes and its places of worship
Lewes district covers of the western part of East Sussex. The English Channel forms its southern boundary for ; four of the five largest towns in the district—Peacehaven, Telscombe Cliffs, Newhaven and Seaford—are on the coast. Lewes, the administrative centre of the district and the county town of East Sussex, lies inland in the centre of the district. The rest of the district is mostly rural. The city and unitary authority of Brighton and Hove lies to the southwest; the district of Mid Sussex, in the neighbouring county of West Sussex, is to the west; and Lewes's eastern boundary is with Wealden district.
The town of Lewes enjoys a strategic position on the River Ouse and surrounded by hills. There is evidence of Anglo-Saxon habitation, and by the 10th century it had become the most important borough in Sussex. It was the administrative centre of the Rape of Lewes, one of the pre-Norman subdivisions of Sussex. The rape was given by William the Conqueror to William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, who had become a major landowner by the time of the Domesday survey in 1086. The town has many surviving Anglican parish churches, of which St Anne's is the oldest. Others such as St Andrew's, St Martin's and St Mary-in-the-Market-Place declined and fell out of use by the Middle Ages, and their parishes were combined with others. Nonconformism has been established in the town for more than three centuries: Unitarians, Methodists, Quakers, Baptists, Strict Baptists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists all founded chapels in the 18th or 19th century, many of which are still in operation. Ditchling and Wivelsfield also have long associations with Nonconformist worship. Outside the town of Lewes itself, most manors and villages had developed by the 12th century, and many of their associated churches date from that time—although the Victorian enthusiasm for church restoration had an effect throughout the district.
There was a church at Bishopstone in the 8th century, and "current scholarship advocates a date of 975" for the founding of the present St Andrew's Church, which retains much Saxon and Norman fabric. The nave of Southease church is 11th-century, and St John the Baptist's Church at Southover was built in the same century, albeit as a hospitium associated with the adjacent Lewes Priory. Some 11th-century fabric also survives at Wivelsfield, and the nave at Ditchling is of that period. Many Anglican churches in the district were built in the 12th century, as Norman architecture gave way to Early English Gothic. Iford, Piddinghoe, Rodmell and Telscombe are wholly or mostly of that date; Barcombe, Beddingham, St Thomas-at-Cliffe Church at Cliffe, East Chiltington, Hamsey, Newhaven, Newick, Plumpton, Ringmer St Leonard's Church at Seaford and Westmeston retain some parts from that century (most commonly the nave). The churches at Chailey, East Blatchington, St Michael's at Lewes, South Malling, Streat, Tarring Neville and West Firle have 13th-century origins, while St Pancras Church at Kingston-near-Lewes was built a century later. Glynde's parish church was rebuilt in a distinctive Palladian style in the 1760s, while the ruinous medieval church in Falmer was rebuilt in the early 19th century. New churches of the 19th century include St John sub Castro, Lewes (1839, replacing an 11th-century predecessor), Offham (1859), North Chailey (1876; closed), Spithurst (1880; closed) and Plumpton Green (1893). Increased residential development in the 20th century prompted the construction of more churches: at Peacehaven (1922; replaced by the present building in 1955), on the Nevill Estate in Lewes (1938), and in the Sutton area of Seaford (1959). A second church was also built in East Blatchington in the 1920s but has closed.
Roman Catholics in the Lewes area had to travel to Brighton to worship until the Lewes Mission was founded in 1865. A chapel in a house was used at first, but on 25 January 1870 a permanent church dedicated to The Sacred Heart and St Pancras was built. It was a stone-built Early English Gothic Revival building designed by Carlos Crisford, who also designed Central Methodist Church, Eastbourne. It was replaced by the present St Pancras Church in 1939. A convent chapel was built in Newhaven in around 1878, but it was not until 20 years later that a permanent Catholic church was built there. W. H. Romaine-Walker was the architect. It was dedicated to The Sacred Heart and was opened on 2 January 1898 by the Bishop of Southwark Francis Bourne. The following year he built a house in nearby Seaford; it included a chapel dedicated to St Francis de Sales, which was open to the public from the beginning. Priests from Newhaven served it at first. This oratory was succeeded by a permanent church, the Church of St Thomas More, in 1935. The present Church of the Immaculate Conception in Peacehaven was registered in 1963, replacing an earlier church.
The Methodist Statistical Returns published in 1947 recorded the existence of Methodist churches, all of Wesleyan origin and administered by the Sussex Mission, at Station Street in Lewes, Chapel Street in Newhaven and Seaford. The building in Lewes closed in 1973 and is now in commercial use; the congregation moved to Christ Church. Newhaven's chapel closed around the time the Returns were compiled, but a Methodist congregation subsequently began to share the Anglican parish church of St Michael and All Angels. Seaford's Methodist chapel was still used until 2016, when it was sold and the congregation moved into the town's United Reformed chapel following years of collaboration between the two denominations. It is now owned by Kings Church Seaford, an Evangelical congregation.
General Baptists, Unitarians and Calvinistic and Strict Baptists have a long and interconnected history in the district. A General Baptist congregation existed in Ditchling in the late 17th century, and a chapel was built 1730. A General Baptist chapel built in the Southover area of Lewes from 1741 was associated with it. The chapel at Ditchling became Unitarian later in the 18th century, and some members seceded and founded a new Strict Baptist chapel at Wivelsfield. Bethel Chapel opened there in 1763 and is still in use. Westgate Chapel in Lewes, built 1700 for Presbyterians, also adopted Unitarian views in the 18th century, and members of Southover General Baptist Chapel joined in the early 19th century when their views changed in the same way. The old chapel was converted into a house in the 1970s; Westgate Chapel remains in use as a Unitarian place of worship. Elsewhere in Lewes town centre, a General Baptist congregation became established in the town centre in 1818 and built the present much-altered Eastgate Baptist Church in 1843. Nearby, Jireh Chapel opened in 1805 for Independent Calvinistic Baptists and was extended in 1826. The cause declined in the 20th century, and the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster began using it for worship since 1998. The present Jubilee Christian Centre in Barcombe, a modern building, is the successor to a Strict Baptist chapel founded in 1810. Other Calvinistic or Strict Baptist churches no longer in religious use can be found in Newick (1834), Ditchling (1867), Lewes (two buildings: 1860 and 1906) and Newhaven (1904). In the 20th century, Baptist churches were built in both Newhaven and Seaford in 1901. The original building at Newhaven still stands and is used as the church hall of the present church, opened in 1938. The chapel in Seaford town centre was demolished in 1973 for commercial development and was replaced by a new circular church building in the East Blatchington area of the town. The Countess of Huntingdon's Connexion, another Calvinist group with links to Methodism, is also represented in the district. The founder of the group, Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntingdon, lived in Wivelsfield and opened a chapel there in 1778—only the second to be founded, and the oldest survivor (the first, opened in Brighton in 1761, has been demolished). Ote Hall Chapel remains in regular use. Another Connexion chapel founded around the same time in the Cliffe area of Lewes was demolished in the late 19th century.
The United Reformed Church was formed in 1972 by a merger between the Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church of England. Seaford Congregational Chapel opened in 1877 and is now the Cross Way Clinton Centre, a shared Methodist and United Reformed church; similarly, the joint Methodist and United Reformed Christ Church in Lewes opened in 1954 as Lewes Congregational Church. There is also a United Reformed Church at Telscombe Cliffs. Former Congregational chapels survive in Newhaven (1866–1938), South Heighton (1891–the mid-20th century) and Ringmer (1914–1995). There was also a Presbyterian chapel in Lewes: built in around 1870, it closed in the 1940s and is now in commercial use.
King's Church, an Charismatic Evangelical fellowship associated with the Newfrontiers movement, has congregations in Lewes and Seaford. Former mission halls in Ditchling, Newick and South Chailey remain in use by Evangelical congregations: Emmanuel Chapel in Ditchling is a replacement building registered in 1972, and Chailey Free Church's present building dates from 1992, but Newick Evangelical Free Church still occupies the original building of 1892. Other Evangelical churches have been registered in Peacehaven in 1966, replacing an earlier building, and the Sutton area of Seaford in 1969.