Bethel Strict Baptist Chapel, Wivelsfield
| Bethel Baptist Chapel | |
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| Bethel Strict Baptist Chapel | |
The chapel from the north
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 Location of the church within East Sussex
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| 50°57′46″N 0°05′43″W / 50.9627°N 0.0952°WCoordinates: 50°57′46″N 0°05′43″W / 50.9627°N 0.0952°W | |
| Location | Ditchling Road, Wivelsfield, East Sussex RH15 0SJ |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Denomination | Baptist |
| Churchmanship | Strict Baptist |
| History | |
| Former name(s) | Wivelsfield Baptist Meeting House |
| Founded | 1763 |
| Founder(s) | Henry Booker |
| Architecture | |
| Status | Chapel |
| Functional status | Active |
| Heritage designation | Grade II |
| Designated | 3 February 1977 |
| Style | Vernacular |
| Groundbreaking | 1780 |
| Completed | 1780 |
Bethel Baptist Chapel is a Strict Baptist place of worship in the village of Wivelsfield in East Sussex, England. The cause was founded in 1763 by members of a chapel at nearby Ditchling; Henry Booker and other worshippers seceded and began to meet at Wivelsfield after hearing a sermon by George Whitefield. Although some members of the new church soon returned to the Ditchling congregation, the cause thrived under Booker's leadership, and the present chapel—a building of "quiet and unassuming elegance" set in its own graveyard—was erected in 1780. It has served the Strict Baptist community continuously since then, and members founded other chapels elsewhere in Sussex during the 18th and 19th centuries. The chapel is a Grade II Listed building.
Throughout Sussex, a coastal county in southeast England, many Christian denominations have thrived alongside the Established Church of England since the 17th century, when the Act of Uniformity 1662 extended religious freedom to so-called Nonconformists or Dissenters (people and ministers who worshipped outside the Church of England but were not part of the Roman Catholic Church). The area around Lewes, the present county town of East Sussex, was a hotbed of Nonconformist worship, and Baptists of all types were well represented.
Ditchling, a village near Lewes, also supported several chapels in addition to the Anglican parish church, whose vicar said in 1780 that "this place is noted for Dissenters of almost all denominations". A General Baptist chapel was founded there in the 1730s, and served worshippers from villages across central Sussex and beyond. The son of Matthew Caffyn was associated with the chapel, as was William Evershed, who later founded the General Baptist Chapel at Billingshurst.
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