Rye Particular Baptist Chapel

Rye Particular Baptist Chapel is a former Strict Baptist place of worship in Rye, an ancient hilltop town in Rother, one of six local government districts in the English county of East Sussex. Built in the 18th century on the site of a decaying Quaker meeting house, it served Baptists in the town for many years until a new chapel was constructed nearby. The chapel is a Grade II Listed building.

The medieval Cinque Port of Rye, on a sandstone hill in the middle of flat marshland, has 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 over and used as a schoolroom for Baptist children. The religious census of Sussex in 1851 recorded that the chapel had 280 sittings, 150 of which were free; and attendances at morning, afternoon and evening services were given as 80, 60 and 140 respectively. Fifty Sunday school children attended in the morning and afternoon as well.

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