CUSTOM HANDMADE GLOBES OF THE HIGHEST QUALITY.

 

  When you can’t find it, why not make it yourself? 

Peter Bellerby was looking for a globe to give as a gift for his father’s 80th birthday, but couldn’t find the right one. So he decided to try and make a globe for his dad, and perhaps another one for himself, and that would be it. But from that limited beginning, he expanded to a small business that was based in his house. Now, he and his team create the globes in a north London studio. (http://www.bellerbyandco.com)

I met Peter at the IC15 conference in Zeist (the Netherlands) and, like everyone else there, I was captivated by the beauty of these hand-crafted globes. Apparently there are only two businesses in the world that make globes by hand. (All photographs courtesy of Bellerby & Co.)

Peter in the studio. (Photograph by Julian Love.)

At work on a plaster of paris sphere (above). Below, the process of applying the gores.

Painting the globes.

The biggest Bellerby globe.

The sizes range from small desk models, which are 9 inches in diameter, to the biggest one in the catalogue, The Churchill, a 50-inch giant that costs £59,000 ($72,000). They plan to make only one of these per year. All the globes have bases with roller bearings for completely free movement.

A really well-made video about the company and their work: https://vimeo.com/63511505