page_title: Berkeley Deane Wise
section_title: Northern Counties
hierarchical_section_title: Berkeley Deane Wise / Northern Counties
caption_attribution_description: English: Berkeley Deane Wise and his wife, Leah, at the Tubular Bridge on the Gobbins Path
context_page_description: Berkeley Deane Wise was an Irish civil engineer who made a significant impact on the development of railways and tourism, particularly in Northern Ireland.
context_section_description: The pinnacle of Wise’s civil engineering career was his 18 years as Chief Engineer to the Belfast and Northern Counties Railway (BNCR). He was appointed to this position on 11 April 1888  at a salary of £400 (equivalent to £44,886 in 2019),, and held it until 1906 when his health failed.
  Wise ensured that renewal of the BNCR track was carried out to a high standard.  He specified steel bull head rails of 83 lb per yard laid on creosoted Baltic redwood.  Wise was a strong advocate of good quality stone ballast, and he developed a quarry near Ballymoney where he installed the latest stone-breaking plant. Wise introduced the tablet signalling system and gave the BNCR its characteristic somersault signals.  His resignalling of York Road Station, Belfast in 1897-98 was the largest installation in Ireland.  From around 1900, Wise also pioneered the use of reinforced concrete for railway structures, such as the King’s Bridge in Whitehead.
  Wise designed many of the stations of the BNCR (see List of Works).  His first was Larne Harbour Station, built in 1890 to a budget of £3,000 (equivalent to £332,598 in 2019). it had a double faced platform, one side serving the broad gauge line from Belfast and the other the narrow gauge from Ballymena, and a clock with two minute hands showing both English and Irish time, which was 25 minutes later.
  But perhaps Wise's most famous building is Portrush railway station, which still stands. By 1891, the existing station was completely inadequate to deal with heavy summer traffic.  Wise designed a mock Tudor building with black beams painted on white stucco, all on a red brick base.  There was an elegant clock tower, some 50 feet high and three platforms 600 feet long, covered for the first 200 feet by a canopy supported by the girders known as the Belfast Truss. On the seaward side, Wise designed the Cafe and Restaurant for over 250 diners, with a balcony overlooking the Atlantic ocean.  Portrush Station was built by contractor McLaughlin and Harvey, opening in the spring of 1893.
  Wise gave the BNCR a distinctive architectural style of red brick buildings with large overhanging awnings and half-timbered gables. It owed much to the Old English style of architect Norman Shaw. Two wooden kiosks, designed by Wise, one from Portrush and one from Belfast York Road in a Swiss style, are preserved in the Ulster Folk and Transport Museum in Cultra.
  Wise worked under Edward John Cotton, General Manager of the BNCR, and together they developed the most prosperous railway in Ireland, showing a particular flair for the promotion of tourism. So as well as his normal work on the railway and its stations, Wise designed tea rooms, promenades, bandstands, footpaths and golf courses across the network.
  Glenariff, one of the nine Glens of Antrim, was described by William Makepeace Thackeray as 'Switzerland in Miniature'.  In 1889 the BNCR leased the upper part of the Glen and Wise constructed paths and walkways so that tourists could see the spectacular waterfalls. They were brought down by jaunting car from the narrow gauge station at Parkmore.  In places Wise cantilevered the path from sheer rock faces and built rustic shelters at strategic points, including one below the Ess-na-Larach waterfall which tourists could view through coloured glass. Two years later, Wise designed and constructed a tea room at the bottom of the glen, which survives as a restaurant; ever mindful of the needs of tourists, it incorporated a darkroom for photographers.
  Wise constructed the Promenade in Whitehead using railway sleepers and made a beach by importing sand by train from Portrush.  A bandstand was built on the promenade and there were summer fireworks displays. In 1892 Wise also engineered a path that stretched 1¼ miles to the Blackhead promontory. The lower sections bordered the shore but blasting and cantilevering from the cliffs was necessary towards Blackhead. He designed Sunshine House, a refreshment room beside the path at Blackhead. The path can still be enjoyed today and there is a plaque to Wise’s achievement in the ca
caption: The Tubular Bridge at the Gobbins. Berkeley Deane Wise and his wife, Leah, are in the foreground
exif: {"Image Make": "HP", "Image Model": "HP pstc3100", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image Software": "Picasa 3.0", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ReferenceBlackWhite": "[0, 255, 128, 255, 128, 255]", "Image ExifOffset": "210", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1032", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6026", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0220", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:05:01 12:24:20", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2319", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1284", "EXIF Saturation": "Soft", "EXIF Sharpness": "Soft", "EXIF DeviceSettingDescription": "[1, 0, 19, 0, 32, 32, 32, 48, 65, 48, 32, 32, 32, 55, 65, 48, 32, 32, 32, 56, ... ]", "EXIF ImageUniqueID": "106b09f583ca224e2999fc607debd96e"}