The minute of 1784, above, that 'the old Meeting House was thought unfit' to sit in appears near the end of a long series of reports. In November 1782 John Rickman and Thomas Cruttenden presented a plan and estimation of charges on altering and repairing the Meeting House as requested. This meeting requests William Tuppen to join the said Friends and examine the estimation making alteration in the plan as seems necessary to them and report their proceedings to the next sitting of this meeting. This was for extending the building in length for the better accommodating of Friends. In January 1783 William Tuppen with the Friends appointed have re-examined the Meeting House at Lewes as requested and find the method will be to take off the roof and prepare two convenient chambers on the second floor, which they apprehend will cost nearly ninety pounds.

In July the matter was still under discussion. This meeting considered the considerable expense that will attend repairing the meeting house at Lewes, and other disagreeable circumstances propose building another at a more convenient place; or repair the present house which is now left to the following Friends to proceed therein [eight names given]. Next month Thomas Marten and Thomas Cruttenden junior two of the Friends appointed to proceed in repairing the Meeting House at Lewes or build a new one as they judge most expedient report they are not come to a final conclusion which report this Meeting expects more fully at our next.

In September The committee appointed to repair the Meeting House at Lewes or to build a new Meeting House and dwelling House adjoining thereto requests Thomas Rickman, senior, to apply to the Quarterly Meeting for their approbation to sell the present Meeting House at Lewes when a suitable purchaser offers and the money arising therefrom to go towards building a new house with dwelling house adjoining there to.

Our reasons for this application are these: near the present Meeting House is a slaughter house and the soil arising therefrom is sometimes thrown out in the road leading to the house which in summer season is very offensive, and lately a turner's workshop is erected adjoining the meeting house. Frequently the turner's lathe is going on the weekday which is disturbing to the Meeting when sitting. The intended new Meeting House and dwelling house we propose will cost near £220 and the money arising from the sale of the present house we apprehend may be about £100, the difference we hope to raise by subscriptions in the compass of Lewes Monthly Meeting.

In October, with the approval of Quarterly Meeting, the meeting appointed Thomas Cruttenden, Thomas Martin, Thomas Rickman, junior, to make sale of the present Meeting House and to be delivered to the purchaser by the 4th month 1784. We are of the opinion the price ought not to be less than £105, but more if it can be obtained.

By November a purchaser had been found, to pay £110 when the building was vacated. The building was sold to the Particular Baptists. There had been a dispute at their chapel on Chapel Hill, which resulted in some of them being locked out of their building, and they were in urgent need of an alternative. Within a short while they took land in Foundry Lane, on lease from Richard Peters Rickman, and built a new chapel. The existence of the deed and the temporary occupation of the old Quaker Meeting House resulted in a long-held belief that the original Friends Meeting House was in Foundry Lane, but W. K. Rector finally rediscovered the true situation when he was able to locate the building from Thomas Woollgar's book Spicilegia. His identification can be confirmed by noting that earlier legal proceedings against the owner of the meeting house had been initiated by the Lewes and not the Cliffe authorities.

The work was complete by the 13th of June, 1784 when Thomas Cruttenden brought in a report:

Sale of late Meeting House £110. 0. 0 Subscriptions 121. 6. 0 The subscribers were Thomas Rickman, senior and Thomas Rickman junior, £21 each; Daniel Burns, Thomas Cruttenden, Thomas Marten, John Rickman, Richard Peters Rickman, Samuel Rickman senior, Mary Rickman (Barcombe), 10 guineas each; Christopher Spencer, 5 guineas and Samand Carter, 1 guinea. [The total in the minute book is in error by 10 shillings.]

Paid George Whyles
as per contract                 £188. 5. 0 
Extra work                        27.19. 1 
Thos. Boxall, bricklayer           7. 7. 6 
George Verrall, making of seats    1. 6. 8 
2 Bath stones                      1. 4. 0 
Painting                           1.14. 9 
John Hardiman                      1. 1. 0 
Sundry disbursements                 10. 6 
------------------------------------------
                                 229. 8. 6
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Balance for future disbts.      £  2. 7. 6

The interior of the meeting room was much as it is now. The benches would have faced forward, with a gangway down the centre. Men would have sat on one side, nearer the door, and women on the other. At the front was a low platform, the 'stand' or 'ministers gallery'. Men and women ministers sat facing the others, and the other weighty members had the front seat below the stand.

The Meeting Room as it may have appeared in the mid-nineteenth century
Drawing by Maurice Burge

There were two stoves, on stone slabs which were visible until renovations in 1987. There would have been little provision for artificial lighting, as meetings always took place in daylight hours. The gallery proper, at the back, could be divided off from the meeting room by sliding shutters. A guide-book to Lewes written in 1824 estimates the capacity of the room as 150 persons, probably including the gallery, but in 1851 the capacity was stated as 105 persons, with the gallery not counted in the space used for public worship. The men retired to the gallery for their business meetings, which were separate from the women's. Beneath the gallery were the rooms occupied by the caretaker.

By 1801 some alterations were necessary. In January 1802 John Godlee brought in sundry bills amounting to £69.11s.4d which he has discharged leaving a balance due to him of £2.7.4.1. Nevertheless more needed to be done. When, in November, the additional work was completed bills, said to be for £44.15.0, were delivered to William Marten and John Rickman. They found a few trifling errors which reduced them to £44.8.21, but the subscriptions at that time amounted to only £31.15.6, and John Godlee was directed to pay the balance from Monthly Meeting funds.

At present we do not know what these alterations were, but examination of the back of the meeting room gives us some clues. The original doors are now permanently closed, and the door in from the porch obviously replaced them. The old porch was rebuilt and is now more than twice its original width. From the edge of the old door to the other side of the room the long floor boards come to an end, and the last few feet at the back seems to have been boarded separately. The panels on the wall at the back are a little incongruous (even before the door on the west wall was opened, this century, and then later closed off). The gallery once came further forward, but it was moved back to make the meeting room proper a little larger. This adaptation isn't entirely successful; the stairs were originally at the back of the gallery, but now the stairwell comes between the gallery and the meeting room.

At Lewes Meeting he was disappointed to find that there was no afternoon meeting, and that they were holding Preparative Meeting on the First-day, rather than a weekday. He felt that he should stay, but couldn't find words to express his unease. He decided to take charge of the proceedings, and suggested that men and women should sit together, although they generally held their business meetings separately, and he proposed that they should read the queries which at this time were answered in writing and forwarded to Quarterly Meeting. All went well until the questions on plainness. Friends were expected not merely to wear plain dress - the Quaker uniform - but also to keep to plainness of speech, referring to days and months by number rather than by the 'heathen' names, and to address individuals as 'thou' or 'thee' rather than 'you'.

In a well-ordered meeting the answer about plainness of speech, behaviour and apparel, as an example to children and servants, should have been a simple 'Yes', but truth required Lewes Friends to qualify this. Thomas Scattergood wrote that one or two whose appearance did not strike me as pleasant, even to the outward eye, proposed that it should be more full, and say, generally careful. I felt much on this occasion, and indeed before, and had to query who there was among them that looked like Friends, with more of a very close nature.

On the following day he visited several Friends, and with each of them he had 'opportunities' (to speak to them privately about their spiritual state). At one Friend's home much ignorance and rawness appeared; but I was enjoined to be tender. Another Friend told him that she felt 'comfortable', whereupon he replied that he wished that it were otherwise; for how could any rightly concerned Friend feel comfortable, when the walls and gates of Zion were laid waste, as in this place.

The New Meeting House
Drawing by Leslie Blomfield