Mary Tuckey, spinster, died in 1837, before the advent of photography, and how I wish there was an image of her. I can imagine her seated at her dressing table beside the carved worked bed with the embroidered quilt, vallance and curtains. Or posed at the desk where she conducted her business and considered the property up for sale in Old Shaw Lane. There maybe a portrait in oil, prized in some distant descendants collection. Maybe a miniature hanging on a long golden chain. Who knows? Mary Tuckey was born in 1757, the second daughter and last child of Richard and Joanna Tuckey. In April 1834 she wrote her Will at Shaw House, the property left to her brother Thomas in their father's Will where she had lived with her mother Joanna. Mary died a wealthy woman, leaving property and parcels of land across the parishes of Lydiard Millicent and Rodbourne Cheney. She wrote off a sizeable debt owed her by her nephew John and everyone received a share of her money. She left beque...