The Meridian No. 1
1908 pattern, our founding model
Eight rings, brass and steel, hand-turned | 22 in | 410 hrs between windings
$4,800
Mechanical planetaria since 1908
The sky, wound
by hand.
Orrery House builds mechanical models of the solar system in a converted coach house in Ashcombe Vale. Six instruments, each made by one maker, each signed inside the base ring where only its owner will ever read the name.
Press T anywhere on this site to hear the escapement tick.
Six instruments, one bench
We do not make a range so much as a family. Every model shares the same drawings, the same bench, and the same stubborn standards, sized from a desk piece to a thirty-one inch flagship.
Vesta Nine
Nine worlds and a comet, 1931 pattern
Nine planets, comet on an inclined track | 26 in | 520 hrs between windings
$6,200
The Lunarium
A moon that keeps true time
Lunar dial, tide ring, 59-tooth wheel | 24 in | 600 hrs between windings
$7,400
The Heliotrope
The flagship: sun, planets, and precession
Twelve rings, precession gear, 40 kg | 31 in | 800 hrs between windings
$9,800
Comet Chaser
A demonstrator for lecture halls
Inclined track, swivelling base, loud tick | 19 in | 360 hrs between windings
$5,600
Tellurion Study
Earth, moon, seasons. A first instrument
Three rings, tilting earth, season arc | 16 in | 300 hrs between windings
$3,900
What a winding feels like
There is no faster way to understand an orrery than to wind one. The key is left handed on purpose; you cannot hurry it, and by the time the fusee is full your hand has learned what the mechanism is doing.
"A new orrery is not finished when it is assembled. It is finished when it has run."
The reading dial: the hand follows your progress down the page
From the journal
Notes from the bench, written between windings.
On Waiting: Eighteen Months of Running-In
A new orrery is not finished when it is assembled. It is finished when it has run.
Brass, Sweated and Struck: Notes on Surface
Why we finish brass the slow way, and what the eye reads in it.
Why the Winding Key Is Left Handed
A small perversity in the standard, and the reason it stays.
Commission or restore
The bench takes two commissions a year and restores instruments by any maker, ours or another's, with the same patience.
Commissions
A new instrument to one of our six patterns, sized and finished to order. The waiting list runs to about a year.
Restoration
Bent arbors, worn pallets, lost keys. We restore to run, not merely to look restored, and we keep a record of everything we touch.
Care
An orrery wants a level shelf, a dry room, and one winding a fortnight. The full care sheet is short and worth reading.