The earliest references to bells at St Leonard’s are a note in the parish records to the effect that Henry VIII requisitioned the bells for gunmetal and a Surrey county inventory of bells in 1553, which tells us only that there were three. It is likely that by the mid eighteenth century there were five bells; this was not an uncommon number for a parish church at the time and there was a pub called the Five Bells in Streatham High Road until about 1880. (In 2005 the former Hogshead adopted this name although it is not on the same site as the original.)
In 1785 the church acquired a new ring of six bells in the key of F, cast by Thomas Mears, the Tenor (14 cwt approx.) being the gift of the Duke of Bedford and the other five funded by public subscription. They were augmented to eight and the Tenor recast by John Warner & Co. in 1906. Those bells were cracked to pieces by the combined effects of intense heat and cold water in the fire of 1975.
The present eight in G were cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, hung by voluntary labour and dedicated to the Glory of God on 25 October, 1981. The new Tenor bell was donated by the Surrey Association of Church Bell Ringers to commemorate its centenary in 1980.
| Bell | Inscription | Weight cwt-qr-lb | Note |
| Treble | JOHN 1960-77 | 3-3-0 | G |
| 2nd | +MERVYN SOUTHWARK 1959-80 | 3-3-16 | F# |
| 3rd | ELIZABETH | 4-0-16 | E |
| 4th | BEDFORD | 5-0-8 | D |
| 5th | LEIGHAM | 5-3-20 | C |
| 6th | DOUGLAS | 6-3-25 | B |
| 7th | MICHAEL | 9-1-10 | A |
| Tenor | LEONARD THE SURREY ASSOCIATION OF CHURCH BELL RINGERS CENTENARY BELL 1880-1980 | 12-3-6 | G |
Video
Download a video clip in AVI format (NB Only recommended for broadband users and the larger file may still take a long time to load):
[45 Mb] Stedman Triples (Practice, August 2006)
[5 Mb] The 6th bell in action
