allan, thanks for that, up till now all we knew was that my ggrandfather referred to it as the big house.
we had hoped to find out a bit more about gertie, his sister, and her husband dr shaw, unfortunately the person i was advised to contact wasn't very forthcoming with info.
we do know that they had no children, and that dr shaw had done some research into his wife's family tree, we just wondered if anyone who knew the couple could remember anything he may have found out