Inside Bellerby & Co: How a Handmade Globe Takes Shape

A flat map can be folded into a pocket. A globe asks a different question: how do you carry all those coastlines, labels and colours around a sphere without losing their relationship? At Bellerby & Co, that question becomes a patient sequence of drawing, paper work, painting and finishing.

The London studio’s story began with Peter Bellerby looking for a globe for his father. What sounded like a manageable personal project became a demanding craft and, eventually, a specialist business.

From a sheet of paper to a curved world

One of the key elements is the gore: a shaped strip of map paper designed to fit part of a sphere. Several gores meet to form the complete map surface. Their edges must align so the geography continues across the joins.

In the studio’s original account, the team describes wetting and carefully applying the paper, with painting and other stages requiring time between operations. It is a process in which small inconsistencies can become very visible once the whole globe comes together.

The photographs make that concentration tangible. A hand works on a tiny detail while a much larger unfinished world waits beside it.

Painting is part of the object

Colour is not merely decoration added after the real work. The shading around coastlines, the balance between land and ocean and the clarity of lettering all affect how the globe is read.

A globe also has a physical life: its sphere, support and finish determine how it stands, moves and feels to use. Looking at the studio images, notice how the makers move between very different scales, from a broad area of ocean to a small illustrated feature.

That combination of cartography and hand work is the attraction. The studio photographs reveal how much work lies behind a surface that looks seamless when finished.

A globe changes familiar relationships

Turn a globe until an ocean is in the centre, or look at the world from above a pole. Places that sit at opposite edges of a rectangular map suddenly become neighbours in the same view.

It is a useful exercise for travellers too. Trace a route, then look at the land and water around it rather than only the departure and arrival points. The shape of the journey may become more interesting than a straight line between two cities.

Appreciate the studio as a working place

The old gallery shows a particular period in the workshop’s life. It is not an announcement of unrestricted public access or a promise that every model pictured remains available. Use the maker’s own site for current enquiries about products and any visiting arrangements.

For another meeting of maps and hand-made art, explore Ed Fairburn’s portraits. His work changes what you see within a map; a Bellerby globe changes how that map occupies space. Both reward the pleasure of looking closely at something that initially seems familiar.

A birthday present became a workshop

Peter Bellerby’s account began with trying to find a globe for his father’s eightieth birthday. The alternatives he found did not match what he wanted, so he attempted to make one. What he expected to take months became a much longer process of trial and error, eventually leading to the London studio founded in 2008.

The workshop's birthday-present origin makes the finished globes easier to understand as the result of repeated experiments. Look for the practical problems visible in the studio photographs: matching paper at a join, applying colour consistently and supporting a large sphere while it is worked on. These details explain why the craft demands patience. They offer a close view of this particular team and its methods.

A flat map must meet a curved surface

The long tapered paper sections are called gores. Their shapes allow a printed map to be applied around a sphere, but successful fitting still demands careful preparation and handling. An error at one edge can become visible when the next section meets it. That is why the makers repeatedly emphasise measuring and checking.

Look at the half-completed globe in the gallery. It makes the relationship between the paper and the sphere especially clear: what appears seamless in the finished object is assembled through a succession of joins. The work is not merely painting a ready-made ball.

Colour is built before and after assembly

The original account described adding washes of colour to sets of gores and keeping replacements matched in case wet paper tore. That gives an ordinary-looking spare sheet an important role in the process. A replacement must fit visually as well as physically, or the repair will interrupt the appearance of the whole map.

Layered pigment produces a different visual effect from a single flat block of colour. In the photographs, coastlines and smaller details receive attention at different stages. The aim is not simply to make the globe colourful but to keep the map readable while giving the object a consistent finish.

Wet paper makes the process delicate

The makers described soaking each gore for an appropriate interval before manipulating it onto the sphere. The paper must conform without tearing or creating an unwanted overlap. The exact procedure belongs to their workshop practice; the photographs are not a complete technical recipe.

This stage helps explain why patience matters throughout the process. The material changes while being handled, so control matters as much as the initial drawing. A small adjustment at the edge may be more consequential than a large decorative gesture later.

Training means repeating precise movements

The original profile described at least six months of practice for a new team member and a need to develop controlled movements. Those figures belong to the workshop’s account at that time. They communicate the learning involved without establishing a universal qualification period for the craft.

The named makers and people visible in the studio give the process a collaborative character. A finished globe may carry one company name, but its production includes map work, painting, assembly, finishing and the base. The gallery is useful precisely because it shows more than the final object.

Size changes the working problem

The selection shows desk globes alongside larger examples, including the 127-centimetre Churchill model. A larger sphere increases the area to cover and makes handling more demanding; it is not simply the same small object photographed closer. Compare the makers’ hands with the surface to understand the scale.

The studio’s account connected the Churchill name and appearance with the large globes associated with Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Second World War. Its proposed limited production schedule was a historical business plan, not a current availability statement.

The support is part of the design

A globe must sit, turn and remain balanced, so the stand and bearing arrangement are not secondary decoration. The original profile described work on the supporting mechanism as well as the sphere itself. Varnishing and fitting the completed globe onto its base come after many earlier decisions that the final presentation can conceal.

When looking at a finished piece, notice the relationship between the map, the axis or support and the space around it. A beautiful surface is only part of an object meant to be handled and explored.

A handmade globe and a phone map do different jobs

The makers acknowledged using digital maps in daily life. There is no contradiction: a phone can help navigate a street while a globe makes the relationship between continents and oceans tangible at once. The craft does not need to defeat digital navigation to have a purpose.

The most rewarding way to read this gallery is to move from finished globes back to the work in progress. Seams, washes, drying stages and careful measurements become visible as the causes of the final appearance. That turns admiration into an understanding of the labour, rather than leaving the object as an unexplained luxury.