GLOBEMAKERS: The Curious Story of an Ancient Craft

Bellerby is a restless man with several careers behind him, and when he decided to give his Dad a globe for his 80th birthday, Bellerby's first idea was for him and his partner Jade to trek round India and bring one back. But he found the choice was a cheap mass-produced effort or an incredibly expensive and fragile antique. There was a third way, however: make one himself, using some of the craft skills he had acquired earlier by renovating houses. A friend agreed to do the coding to change a flat map into gores that could be stuck on a sphere, and the scheme was under way. He had now to learn how to make a sphere, apply the gores, paint and varnish, and construct a wooden base. A year later, in summer 2010, he had hired a part-time painter and a woodworker and had set up his own company. In order to finance the project he was having to sell its products, so his Dad was nowhere nearer getting his globe. Bellerby looks into the history of globes, starting in 15th century Nuremberg, in order to make a perfect sphere, which requires a mould for two plaster of Paris halves. The near-impossible task of morphing the map into gores takes him back to Ptolemy and the William Blaeu globe at the National Maritime Museum. Wallpaper paste or glue? How to fix the meridians? Instagram increased the orders dramatically, but countries are always changing boundaries, so you need to keep a globe in the moment. For five or six years sales failed to cover costs and Bellerby had to sell his car and his house. But on the plus side he had founded the only fully bespoke globemaker in the world, Bellerby and Co, doing everything by hand. A fascinating and beautifully produced volume. 222pp, numerous colour photos.
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