I Say A Little Prayer

Two idyllic old rectories have come to the market, as well as the Cotswold manor house named for the clergyman who helped Henry VIII get his first divorce

FOR more than 40 years, The Old rectory at Widdington in Essex, five miles from Saffron Walden and eight miles from Bishop’s Stortford, was the family home of the late Brian Lister, arguably Britain’s leading postwar designer and builder of sports racing cars, under the banner of the Lister engineering firm founded by his grandfather in 1890. Now, following the death of his widow, Josephine, the lovely Grade II-listed former rectory—which stands in more than six acres of delightful gardens and grounds alongside the church in this popular commuter village—has been placed on the market through Knight Frank in Bishop’s Stortford (01279 213343) at a guide price of £3.25 million.

On leaving Cambridge’s Perse School in 1942, Lister completed a four-year apprenticeship with the family firm, before joining the rAF as a National Serviceman, where he continued to hone his skills, both as an engineer and a jazz musician, before rejoining the family business. At the time, motorsports were enjoying a renaissance and Lister was soon bitten by the racing bug.

He helped to found the Cambridge 50 Car Club, where he forged a close friendship with the diminutive daredevil ‘Archie’ Scott Brown and, backed by his father, developed the first Lister car, which was driven by Scott Brown to a winning debut at Snetterton in 1954.