The Five Ash Down chapel has been described as "the parent of many other places [of worship] both Baptist and Independent" across Sussex,[2] 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.

[1] The Sussex form of Calvinism is "explicitly rooted in 16th-century puritanism"[3] and the missionary activity of several itinerant preachers who travelled around the countryside regularly, often preaching in the open air.

Richard de Courcy, an Anglican clergyman who also undertook outdoor preaching, visited the town of Uckfield in 1772 and delivered "an impressive sermon to a considerable crowd".

Until then he had attended the local Anglican church; but after hearing de Courcy's "fiery sermon"[8] he was converted to the Calvinist cause and started holding meetings in accordance with these doctrines at his house in Five Ash Down,[9] a hamlet 3⁄4 mile (1.2 km) northwest of Buxted village.

[10] Over the next 11 years, attendance at these meetings grew so much that the room was no longer large enough, so services were also held at a nearby inn for a time.

[3] Members of the congregation who preferred the stricter doctrine broke away from Five Ash Down Chapel and formed a new church along Strict Baptist lines at a farm in Uckfield on 15 May 1785.

[17] Now known as Five Ash Down Chapel, it is an Evangelical fellowship, independent of denominational links and based on Reformed ecclesiology.

Built of blue brick with red-brick quoins,[22] it has a west-facing symmetrical façade with three bays, each topped with a gable and containing a stone lancet window.