If you were a Victiorian lady or gentleman, who enjoyed a stroll through London’s Leicester Square, you might have been surprised, one day in 1851, to find a dramatic change to the gardens there. Previously derelict and not the most salubrious of places, the area was suddenly transformed and dominated by a large circular building, with a huge dome protruding from its roof. Those who were inclined to examine this strange edifice a little closer would have discovered that inside there was an enormous globe, more than 60 feet in diameter. Inside that, there were staircases and elevated platforms for visitors to climb and view the surface of the earth on the concave inner surface, with the world’s rivers and mountains built to scale from plaster of Paris.

 

Wyld’s Great Globe – or Wyld’s Monster Globe as it was also known – was the brainchild of James Wyld. A former Liberal Member of Parliament for Bodmin in Cornwall, Wyld was a distinguished and prolific map maker. His reputation was best summed up by Punch magazine, saying that if a country were discovered in the centre of the earth, Wyld would produce a map of it as soon as it was discovered, if not before.

 

Wyld’s plan for a spherical, rather than a flat, map showing the exterior of the Earth on the interior of a huge globe, began as a promotional project for his map making business. His thinking was based on the fact that, from a single viewpoint, it would be impossible to see the whole of the Earth represented on the outside of a gigantic sphere. But if the same countries, continents, seas and oceans were represented on the inside of the sphere, and if people could go inside and look around, then the whole World could be taken in from a single viewpoint. To quote what Punch said about it at the time, it was: “a geographical globule which the mind can take in at one swallow.”

 

Wyld’s first idea was to erect his Globe inside the Crystal Palace, which housed The Great Exhibition when it opened in Hyde Park in May 1851. His plan, however, was rejected on the grounds that the Globe was too big and also because the organisers were against any form of commercialism by exhibitors who attempted to use the exhibition to sell their goods or services.

 

Leicester Square had originally been the proposed site for The Great Exhibition, but was rejected early on because the location was too small. Similarly rejected by the exhibition organisers, Wyld set out to snap up the freehold on the Square’s gardens for his own project. After some opposition from, and protracted negotiations with, owners of buildings surrounding the Square, Wyld eventually secured the land for £3,000 and building began. The Illustrated London News of 22nd March 1851 stated:

 

The dull and dreary centre of Leicester Square has of late become a scene of great activity in the commencement of the building to receive Mr. Wyld’s large Model of the Earth and surface. Upwards of 100 workmen are busily engaged upon this area. Huge balks of timber have displaced the stunted trees and shrubs; and large trusses have been framed for the support of the capacious structure.

 

During the period of erecting and placing the trusses to support the dome in their several beds, those fixed have much the appearance of the ribs of a large ship. We congratulate the inhabitants of Leicester Square upon the prospect of having a building which, if the design is fully carried out, will be an ornament to the metropolis. Within two weeks of the start of building, the workforce numbered more like 300, working by day and by gaslight at night. The building had a diameter of 88 feet with four entrances. Inside, 32 trusses supported the gigantic globe, while vertical timbers supported four galleries. Everything was grounded solidly in concrete as it was thought that the slightest vibration might harm the delicate plaster of Paris modelling inside the globe. During the building, a statue of George I on horseback had to be removed. It was stated that this would be placed in a pit below the building and reinstated when The Globe was removed. There were also rumours that it had been sawn up and buried or that parts of it had been dismantled, stolen and sold by some of the workers. The final cost was somewhere around £5,500, more than double the £2,000 that Wyld had planned for, but a lot less than an estimated £13,000 that would have been needed to complete the project if the construction of originally envisaged outlying buildings had not been cancelled. The Globe was opened to the press and special guests on 29th May 1851 and on 2nd June, it was opened to the public.

 

On entering any of the four entrances, which faced north, south, east and west, visitors were faced with large reception areas from where turnstiles led to a corridor that ran around the inner circumference of the building. The curved wall on one side of the corridor was the outside surface of the globe, painted blue with star constellations in silver. The opposite wall was hung with maps that promoted Wyld’s business, and the corridor was lit by globe-shaped lamps. The pillars that supported the balconies were decorated with designs copied from the Alhambra Palace in Spain. From this corridor, the public entered the interior of the Globe through an impressive entrance gate, decorated with Moorish patterns, influenced by Arabic designs.