St Olave’s has a fine peal of eight bells, which for a number of decades have been looked after and rung by The University of London Society of Change Ringers, who receive frequent requests for access to the bells from visiting ringers.
In 1662 Anthony Bartlett of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast five bells for St Olave’s. His son James made a sixth bell in 1694 and in 1929 the peal was completed by the gift of Viscount Wakefield.
In an aerial attack on the church in May 1941 the Tower was hit and the tower became a roaring furnace, bringing the bells down in a mass of molten metal. This metal was fortunately salvaged and, in the same foundry that made the original peal, the eight bells were re-cast, largely from their original material. The inscription on the Tenor reads "From the same metal which the fires of war melted down, 1941, we were re-cast 1952".
The names of The Revd Augustus Powell Miller (the Rector who oversaw the post-war restoration of the church), of the six contemporary Churchwardens and of the bell foundry, are recorded on the bells. The first peal was rung on Christmas morning 1953: three courses of Stedman Triples by ringers from St Paul's Cathedral conducted by Mr A. A. Hughes of Mears and Stainbank.