There are 70 extant churches and places of worship in the district of Lewes, one of five local government districts in the English county of East Sussex. A further 21 former places of worship are no longer in religious use. The area now covered by the district is mainly rural and characterised by small villages with ancient parish churches. The riverside market town of Lewes, the port of Newhaven and the seaside towns of Seaford, Peacehaven and Telscombe Cliffs are the main urban areas and have higher concentrations of religious buildings.
Most residents of the district identify themselves as Christian, and there were no places of worship serving any other religious groups until a mosque and Islamic community centre opened in Seaford in 2017. Many Christian denominations are represented—the town of Lewes in particular has a long-established history of Protestant Nonconformism—but the majority of churches serve the Church of England community.
Historic England or its predecessor English Heritage have awarded listed status to 43 of Lewes district's current and former places of worship. A building is defined as "listed" when it is placed on a statutory register of buildings of "special architectural or historic interest" in accordance with the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990. The Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, a Government department, is responsible for this; Historic England, a non-departmental public body, acts as an agency of the department to administer the process and advise the department on relevant issues. There are three grades of listing status. Grade I, the highest, is defined as being of "exceptional interest"; Grade II* is used for "particularly important buildings of more than special interest"; and Grade II, the lowest, is used for buildings of "special interest".
Overview of Lewes and its places of worship
Lewes district covers of the western part of East Sussex. The English Channel forms its southern boundary for ; four of the five largest towns in the district—Peacehaven, Telscombe Cliffs, Newhaven and Seaford—are on the coast. Lewes, the administrative centre of the district and the county town of East Sussex, lies inland in the centre of the district. The rest of the district is mostly rural. The city and unitary authority of Brighton and Hove lies to the southwest; the district of Mid Sussex, in the neighbouring county of West Sussex, is to the west; and Lewes's eastern boundary is with Wealden district.
The town of Lewes enjoys a strategic position on the River Ouse and surrounded by hills. There is evidence of Anglo-Saxon habitation, and by the 10th century it had become the most important borough in Sussex. It was the administrative centre of the Rape of Lewes, one of the pre-Norman subdivisions of Sussex. The rape was given by William the Conqueror to William de Warenne, 1st Earl of Surrey, who had become a major landowner by the time of the Domesday survey in 1086. The town has many surviving Anglican parish churches, of which St Anne's is the oldest. Others such as St Andrew's, St Martin's and St Mary-in-the-Market-Place declined and fell out of use by the Middle Ages, and their parishes were combined with others. Nonconformism has been established in the town for more than three centuries: Unitarians, Methodists, Quakers, Baptists, Strict Baptists, Presbyterians and Congregationalists all founded chapels in the 18th or 19th century, many of which are still in operation. Ditchling and Wivelsfield also have long associations with Nonconformist worship. Outside the town of Lewes itself, most manors and villages had developed by the 12th century, and many of their associated churches date from that time—although the Victorian enthusiasm for church restoration had an effect throughout the district.