Five Ash Down Independent Chapel

Five Ash Down Independent Chapel is an independent Evangelical church in the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition in the hamlet of Five Ash Down, East Sussex, England. Founded in 1773 in the house of a local man, Thomas Dicker senior, the cause developed so rapidly that a church was founded and a permanent building erected for the congregation 11 years later. The church was run along Calvinistic lines at first, in common with many new chapels in late 18th-century Sussex, and an early group of seceders from the congregation founded a chapel in nearby Uckfield which was run in accordance with Baptist theology. The Five Ash Down chapel has been described as "the parent of many other places [of worship] both Baptist and Independent" across Sussex, and it has continued into the 21st century—now as a small Evangelical fellowship but still worshipping in the original chapel, whose present appearance is a result of expansion and refronting during the Victorian era.