C O M PA S S
Hello! Kindly introduce yourself.
Peter Bellerby, owner of Bellerby & Co Globemakers in London. We handcraft
and hand-paint globes the traditional way. Each of our globes is one of a kind and
made bespoke to order.
The Livingstone Celestial desk
globe with cherry wood stand
Opposite page: Peter Bellerby,
photographed by Julian Love
You started this business because you couldn’t find a globe you wanted to buy
for your father’s 80th birthday.
If I had set out to make a business of globe-making from day one, it would have
most likely never happened. I would have costed it up and made a business plan, then
probably torn it all up and moved on to something else. It really started as a hobby,
where I thought I would be making two at most (one for my dad and one for myself),
but it got out of hand. I think I was stubborn enough to keep pushing myself.
The inspiration came after a lifetime of buying my father standard gifts like
books and socks and ties. When I went to buy a globe, all I found were poor quality
imitations, plastic globes, or fragile and insanely expensive antiques. Everything
I saw that was close to modern was so badly made with cheap stands and incorrect
cartography. It inspired me to create globes that could be up-to-date, personalized
to suit any taste and preference, aesthetically beautiful, as well as functional. Our
globes are made to be touched and spun.
How would you define your approach to globe-making?
Are you creating it in a style unique to Bellerby, or prefer
to let clients provide direction and learn new approaches
in this manner?
I taught myself to make globes by trial and error, so the
techniques have been developed by me. We do things totally
original, and some may be how things used to be done
more or less. (The old masters did not leave behind how-to
manuals.) The map is of our design, as are the bases. We
have many color suggestions but, once in a while, a customer
requests something totally new.
What is dictated by our clientele is the personalization. Many
want us to guide them, but some people come up with ideas we
have never thought of. This is in the form of hand-drawn and
hand-painted illustrations, or special markings on the map like
travel routes. Occasionally we work with customers to design their
own one-off base as well. We’ve had customers doodle with pen on
paper and send us a snapshot, and we make it a reality.
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