Bursledon is a village in the Eastleigh district of the county, on the River Hamble estuary close to Southampton. St Leonard's stands to the E of the village, close to the river, and is a rubble building with a timber-framed, tiled bell-turret at the W end of the nave. The medieval church was a 2-cell building, and transepts with 2-bay W aisles were added in Sedding's restoration of 1888, along with a S organ chamber to the chancel, and the bell turret which surmounts a colonnaded wooden porch. The church had previously been restored in 1828, and Sedding conserved such medieval fabric as had survived this. This is essentially the W part of the nave walling, and probably part of the chancel also all of which dates from the early 13thc. The 13thc carved responds of the chancel arch also survive, but probably moved. The only Romanesque feature is the font.

Bursledon does not appear in the Domesday Book (the nearest settlement is Hound to the S, with Netley to the W). The church was a dependent chapel of Hamble-le-Rice, which was the parochial nave of Hamble Priory, a cell of Tiron Priory in France.

The curious change in the arcading of the font, from round-headed intersecting arches to pointed arches could have been a way to distinguish between a front and back of the object, rather than a change of plan motivated by time constraints. Another case where something similar occurs is at Purley-on-Thames, Berkshire, but in this case a shift from intersecting to plain round arches was clearly to provide larger fields under two plain arches which are occupied by a human head and an interlace motif.