St Helen
Mareham le Fen, Lincolnshire
Resting place of James Roberts, who sailed on the Endeavour alongside Captain Cook and Sir Joseph Banks.
The 1733 church was built on the site of an even earlier church. The parish of Revesby includes the site of the Cistercian abbey of St Mary & St Lawrence, founded in 1142 and colonised by monks from Rievaulx Abbey. The abbey was suppressed through the 1538 Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act.
The church you see today was provided by James Banks Stanhope and Edward Stanhope and completed in 1892. It was built mainly of Ancaster stone to designs by Charles Hodgson Fowler of Durham.
There is a monument to Joseph Banks (1665-1727), a Norman font and a pretty reredos with gilded angels and mother of pearl inlay. Fragments of Revesby Abbey can be seen as reset masonry in the tower of the church. Nearby is the Joseph Banks Almhouse, another grade II listed building. You can still see the original foundation stone is above the doorway.
