newly built church centre at Battle which opened in 2014. Rye was a hotbed of Nonconformist worship: a religious census in 1676 found 300 Nonconformists in the town, more than ten times as many as in the much larger parish of Salehurst, which had the next highest number. In 1847, chapels existed for Methodists, Presbyterians, Independents, Baptists, Quakers and Unitarians; Congregationalists, the Salvation Army and Jehovah's Witnesses also set up places of worship in the town later; and the Baptists split into several groups and have occupied five buildings over the years—all of which still stand. Elsewhere, Baptist churches can also be found in Battle, Bexhill and Sidley; Quakers now meet in Bexhill; and members of the United Reformed Church, formed by a union of the Congregational Church and the Presbyterian Church of England in 1972, worship in Ashburnham, Bexhill and Sedlescombe and also used a chapel in Robertsbridge until 2015. In the second half of the 20th century, Pentecostal churches became established in Beckley (registered in 1956), Bexhill and Crowhurst (1991). Religious affiliation According to the United Kingdom Census 2011, 90,588 people lived in Rother. Of these, 64.81% identified themselves as Christian, 0.51% were Muslim, 0.19% were Jewish, 0.32% were Buddhist, 0.19% were Hindu, 0.01% were Sikh, 0.58% followed another religion, 25.24% claimed no religious affiliation and 8.16% did not state their religion. The proportion of Christians was higher than the 59.38% in England as a whole, and the proportions of people claiming adherence to another religion or no religious affiliation were also higher in Rother than nationally (the figures for England as a whole were 0.43% and 24.74% respectively). The percentage of people in Rother not answering this census question was also higher than the 7.18% nationally. Other religions named in the census had much lower proportions of followers than in England overall—the corresponding national percentages were 5.02% for Islam, 1.52% for Hinduism, 0.79% for Sikhism, 0.49% for Judaism and 0.45% for Buddhists. Administration All Anglican churches in Rother district are part of the Diocese of Chichester, whose cathedral is at Chichester, and the Lewes and Hastings Archdeaconry—one of three subdivisions which make up the next highest level of administration. In turn, this archdeaconry is divided into eight deaneries. The churches at Flimwell, Stonegate and Ticehurst are in the Rural Deanery of Rotherfield. The Rural Deanery of Rye covers 23 churches in the district: Beckley, Bodiam, Brede, Camber,