Golden Gate Park – Atop Rainbow Falls

 Posted by on February 27, 2012
Feb 272012
 
Golden Gate Park
Atop of Rainbow Falls

 

 

 

 

 

Atop of Rainbow Falls is the Prayer Book Cross (also called Drake’s Cross). It is the tallest monument in the park at 64 feet with base. It is not easy to reach, and is well hidden by foliage. It was erected in Golden Gate Park in 1894 as a gift from the Church of England and was created by Ernest Coxhead. Made of sandstone, the cross commemorates the first use of the Book of Common Prayer in California by Sir Francis Drake’s chaplain on June 24, 1579.

On January 2, 1894 the New York Times was there to cover the dedication.

Ernest Coxhead was born in Eastbourne, Sussex, in 1863 and died in Berkeley, California March 27 1933. He was an English architect, active in the USA. He was trained in the offices of several English architects and attended the Royal Academy Schools, London. In 1886 he moved with his older brother, Almeric to Los Angeles where he established an independent practice. The Coxheads moved to San Francisco four years later and soon formed a partnership that lasted until Almeric’s death. Coxhead was an important and innovative designer who contributed to the woodsy regional design known as Bay Area Traditional.

The front of the cross reads:
Presented to Golden Gate Park at the opening of the Midwinter Fair January 1, AD 1894 – As a memorial of the service held on the shore of Drakes Bay about Saint John Baptists Day June 24 Anno Domini 1579 by Francis Fletcher priest of the Church of England and chaplain of Sir Francis Drake chronicler of the service.

The back reads:
First christian service in the English tongue on our coast. First use of Book of Common Prayer in our country – One of the first recorded missionary prayers on our continent. – There is a bottom panel, but it is too worn to read – something that often happens to sandstone structures.

Rainbow Falls was named for the colored lights that originally framed the falls at their dedication in 1930, this is the second of two artificial waterfall systems created in Golden Gate Park (the other being Huntington Falls in Stow Lake). Water is pumped from nearby Lloyd Lake, and circulated in the trench stream along JFK Drive. The very top of the falls is enclosed by fences, so no vantage point looking down over the cascade is possible.

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