The Rope Flying Cadman, St. Mary's Church Shrewsbury and His Horrible Death

An eccentric showman associated with Shrewsbury was the daring Cadman. Read on to find out how he came to a horrible end.
This is a true story, from long ago where facts often seem stranger than fiction.

If you need proof you can find it beside a Shrewsbury church doorway.

Yes. Look on the outside of the west end of St. Mary's Church, which is opposite the Post Office at the top of the town, and you will see a set of verses commemorating his fatal accident in the year 1739.

Watch our video below, about this first and then scroll down and please give us your comment on the event, and on our video:

Robert Cadman, was the man responsible for a sort of early circus act that went horribly, horribly wrong. Mr Cadman was a sort of Evel Knievel of the eighteenth century, a daredevil and an entertainer. He was steeplejack by trade, who performed feats of daring at various places across the country by sliding or "flying" down a rope.

It is recorded, for example, that he "amused the people of Dover, by flying across the harbour from the highest point of the cliff, towards the lower extremity of Snargate Street.

Thousands of people would assemble to watch these events.

Cadman's assumed rope position during his ill-fated "flight".

Anyway, on February 2, 1739, as part of Shrewsbury's celebrations of 'The Great Frost' that year, Mr Cadman was ready to attempt 'flying' from the spire of St Mary's across the River Severn and into the Gay Meadow.

In those days the Gay Meadow was just a meadow of course, and not a football ground!

Before beginning his epic rope-slide, he entertained the crowd below with a variety of rope stunts. But, tragically the rope snapped.

According to most accounts, one end of a rope had been fixed to the top of the spire of St. Mary's, and the other end to a point on the other side of the River Severn. Cadman, either balancing himself on a wooden box on wheels or holding a breast plate which ran along on the rope, he attempted to glide all the way down the rope.

But, suddenly, when Cadman was half-way across, the rope snapped, and he fell to his death. 

Some accounts say that his wife was so busy gathering money from the huge crowd of onlookers that it was several minutes before she realised what had happened...

Text for this article and the video from “The Story of Shrewsbury”, by Richard Graves plus additional information from Phil Gillam’s article in the Chronicle (newspaper), 11 January 2018 edition, and the Wikipedia, Robert Cadman page.

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