Church Of St Leonard

Church of St Leonard, Streatham High Road, London SW16

The Church of St Leonard dates from around 1350 and later, incorporating work by J T Parkinson in 1831, William Dyce in 1863, and (following a major fire) the Douglas Feast Partnership in 1975-7.

The building comprises a rectangular plan with aisles, a western tower, chancel, and two side chapels (formerly vestries), with a crypt beneath.

The lower parts of the tower are 14th-century, constructed of knapped flint with stone dressings. The western doorway and tower arch are also 14th-century. The upper storeys and spire date from a restoration of 1841. The brick nave, clad in stucco and featuring Decorated tracery, was rebuilt in 1831 to Parkinson's design. The stone chancel, designed in Early English style with a steep slate roof, dates from 1863 (William Dyce); the vestries were added in 1877.

Inside, a narthex has been created east of the tower by the insertion of a wall, with a staircase providing access to a gallery and mezzanine inserted in 1975-7. The nave retains the cast iron piers from the 1831 work, which now support a gallery on three sides (1975-7). The 1970s work included new seating, organ, a paved stone floor incorporating older ledger stones, a Chapel of Unity at the west end of the south aisle, and clerestory lights in the nave and chancel. The chancel retains its arcade of columns with stiff-leaf capitals designed by Dyce, though fragments only survive of his original colourful painted scheme, largely destroyed along with choir stalls, rood screen, and altar furniture in the 1975 fire. Notable fittings include a 15th-century octagonal font (restored after the fire) and late 20th-century stained glass by John Hayward.

The chancel contains a brass to William Mowfurth (died 1513) and a mutilated figure of a knight, possibly Sir John Ward, beneath a 14th-century canopy. The Chapel of Unity houses a late 14th or early 15th-century brass to John Elslefeld and a colourful alabaster monument to Edmund Tylney (died 1610). The north aisle contains memorials to the Thrale family with epitaphs by Dr Johnson. In the vaulted tower porch is an early 17th-century monument to the Massingberd family with facing kneeling figures and a fine late 17th-century baroque monument to the Howland family.

The church occupies a site with continuity since at least the Norman Conquest. The current tower is the only surviving fabric of the church built by Sir John Ward (friend of the Black Prince and fellow combatant at Crécy) around 1350; the effigy of a knight at the east end may be Ward's. The spire was added in 1778 and reconstructed in 1841. In 1831, Parkinson rebuilt the nave, added an apse at the east end, and excavated the crypt. William Dyce, a Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood member and churchwarden, rebuilt the chancel in 1863. On the evening of 5 May 1975, a major fire destroyed much of the nave, interior woodwork, roof, and bells; the Douglas Feast Partnership designed a new interior within the surviving 19th-century walls in 1975-7.

The Thrale family—Henry, a wealthy brewer and MP for Southwark, and his wife Hester—were close friends of Dr Samuel Johnson, who visited them frequently at nearby Streatham Place. Several family members are interred in the crypt, moved there in 1831 from their vault beneath the older church floor.

The churchyard contains four listed tombs: a monument to George Abell (died 1826), a monument to Joseph Hay (died 1805), a monument to Lieutenant Colonel William Boyce (died 1808), and a monument to Thomas Helps (died 1842) and his family, all Grade II.