HISTORY

How Pro Corda began

Betty Hewlins and Pamela Spofforth were teachers of cello and violin respectively who met at a school in Surrey.  Miss Hewlins was great grand daughter of the Victorian artist Henry Garland and Miss Spofforth was the grand daughter of the famous cricketer Frederick Robert Spofforth.  They felt that string playing in the UK in general and ensemble playing in particular was not very good. 

They began to organise informal chamber music lessons for their pupils and found that children, by playing together with others of similar ability and motivation could quickly gain confidence and performance skills.  On one occasion they entered some ensembles in the Wimbledon Festival and were asked for the name of the course they had run.  Miss Spofforth quickly searched her mind for a suitable name and having rejected 'Hewforth' blurted out the name 'Pro Corda'.   Once said the name stuck.  Corrupt Latin it might be but it tripped off the tongue and an institution was born.

The two ladies started running short weekend courses and later longer holiday courses for children of mixed ages and potential.  Children were placed in compatible groups so that they learned the repertoire progressively.  Miss Hewlins, always practical, devised her own method of timetabling the groups, while Miss Spofforth (affectionately called 'Spoff' by her pupils) determined the composition of the ensembles and what works they should study.   In the early days great emphasis was placed on the masters of the Viennese School.  By 1969 it had been decided to set up a Charitable Trust (then called the Pro-Corda Trust) to educate young persons and others in the 'whole art philosophy and theory of chamber music'.

At the beginning there were two courses per annum and each course covered a wide age range from five to eighteen.  When the courses became larger Spoff and Hewlins hired a variety of schools such as Charterhouse, the Yehudi Menhuin School and Orwell Park in Suffolk.  There was always an interesting range of tutors such as Christopher Bunting, Hugh Bean, Martin Lovett, Eli Goren, the Delmé Quartet and many others.  From the start standards were very high and from time to time concerts took place in prestigious venues such as the Wigmore Hall. 

During a course at Orwell Park somebody mentioned that Leiston Abbey House, a retreat house for the Diocese of St Edmundsbury was for sale.  Through the sad aura of a neglected house which had seen much happier times they could see the potential of the whole site as a home for young musicians.  There was a huge amount of work needed to make the Abbey House and the barn suitable for children.  In making the place habitable they were assisted by many people, notably parents and first trustees who were prepared to 'muck in' by decorating and carrying out minor building work.  The first course was held at Leiston in 1978 when there was still much to be done.

Shortly after moving into Leiston Abbey House the possibility of purchasing for a nominal sum the Barnyard and the fields to the west arose.  Again, seeing the potential for increasing the limited facilities, the property was purchased, another leap of faith.  In 1982-3 an appeal was run by Moira Smith to raise more funding, initially to build onto the three existing redbrick garages to make five studios and to add a Green Room to the Barn.  This made it possible to start the design and building of the Guesten Hall, a miraculous survival of two medieval stone walls under a growth of trees and brambles whose potential was recognised by the architect Brian Weller.  He devised the unique support for the building with laminated beams so that the roof would not rest on the fragile ancient walls.  The design was ambitious and money ran out before it was complete, fortunately after the first skin of the roof was in place.  After a period of some five or six years the completion of the building and refurbishing became possible with the generous aid of a legacy from Geoffrey and, authoress, Margery Castle neé Sharp.  Mary Lomas, who died tragically young, was a trustee at this time and instrumental in helping to get the funds to complete the work.  Within a year of completion the Guesten Hall was a listed grade II building. 

As time went on the number of courses proliferated and Pro Corda began to take on an organisational structure.  Anthony Bowring was an early Administrator having worked for Ranulph Fiennes and commandeered a tanker to move icebergs in the North Atlantic.   He set about raising the funding to build an additional accommodation building, the Guesten Lodge, to provide much needed residential space. The funding was partially funded by the National Lottery, newly established, with the initial donation being made by ARCO the oil company.  Pro Corda was one of the first projects to be assisted by the National Lottery.  The building was opened by Sir Colin Davis in 1990.

Earlier in the same year Miss Hewlins died after a period of ill health and she never saw the building work completed.  This was a tragic blow to Spoff but she determined to continue the work she had set out to do.   Sadly soon after that Spoff suffered a debilitating stroke which left her disabled. In 2009 Pro Corda celebrates its 40^th birthday.

How should we remember the Founders of Pro Corda?  They were both accomplished musicians and could be very sympathetic teachers.   They always tried to promote the interests and talents of their pupils and they engendered great loyalty amongst many of the students.  For some, less accustomed to their ways, they seemed sometimes harsh in their judgement, often of human failings rather than of musicianship, and they made demands on everyone in ways that people sometimes found hard to rise to.  It could never be doubted however that they were charismatic in their near obsession with Pro Corda and they were prepared to devote their all energy to ensure that it survived.  Spoff was 45 years old when Pro Corda moved to Leiston Abbey and Miss Hewlins was some 15 years older.  As trustees they did not receive any payment other than the satisfaction they got from seeing their work thrive.

Late in their lives they both received MBEs for their work

With thanks to Moira Smith