Rye Particular Baptist Chapel

The medieval Cinque Port of Rye, on a sandstone hill in the middle of flat marshland, has (in common with the rest of Sussex) supported a great variety of Christian denominations over the centuries. The earliest post-Reformation community were the Quakers, who founded a chapel on the south side of Mermaid Street in 1700 or 1704. They used this meeting house for the next half-century; but in 1753 it was reported as being "in a very dilapidated condition and past hope of repair". They sold the site to a congregation of Strict Baptists who had just formed in the town. They knocked down the decrepit building and erected a new chapel on the site; it was ready in 1754. An adjacent house was taken…

The chapel is a two-storey red-brick building in a Vernacular style. The roof, which has two dormer windows in the attic space above the first floor, is laid with tiles at the rear and slates at the front. The three-bay façade, 29.5 ft wide, has a wide doorway with a straight canopy supported by ornate brackets. A twin staircase with metal railings leads to the door from the pavement. A thin string course of red bricks separates the ground and first floors, which have two and three shallow-arched sash windows respectively. There are two similar windows on the rear wall; originally the pulpit stood between them. A small gable-ended extension at the rear may have been a vestry. The interior…