Leksbergs kyrka

The church is thought to have been built in the 1200s, with an extension added to the east towards the end of that century. Medieval fabric survives in the nave walls, a font, a carved stone head set above the south doorway into the chancel, and four so-called lily stones outside the sacristy, one of which bears runic inscriptions and was later reused as a threshold stone.

The building was significantly remodelled in the eighteenth century. In 1738 the present octagonal chancel was built to the east, the nave was lengthened and the roof raised. A few years later, in 1741, the altarpiece was given a new crown, and the ceiling was decorated with painted panels in the style of the Läckö school, the work of Johan Lidholm and Olof Collander. The porch to the south followed in the 1740s, and drapery paintings around windows and doors, possibly from the 1750s, were later overpainted and only rediscovered during restoration work in the twentieth century.

A freestanding wooden bell tower recorded in the seventeenth century was replaced in 1760 by the stone tower that still stands at the west end. Further changes came in 1828, when the main entrance was moved to the tower's west front and its ground floor became a porch, and again around 1900, when the present pulpit was made as a copy of an earlier one.

Inside the chancel is an altarpiece dated 1679, which was removed in 1856 in favour of an oil painting of Christ in the garden of Gethsemane by J. Z. Blackstadius (1816–1898); that painting now hangs on the south wall, while the older altarpiece was reinstated during a major restoration in 1930. The same restoration uncovered earlier medieval wall paintings, though these were found to be too damaged to conserve.

Two runestones stand close to the church, one within the churchyard and one just outside it; the former was discovered in 1878 during removal of part of the old churchyard wall. The church also retains two late medieval bells, one decorated with a wheel cross and a pilgrim's mark, the other bearing an incised pentagram, along with painted gravestones and floral decoration from the 1600s–1700s beneath the gallery.