Ruchlaw House, Doocot

217. Ruchlaw.

On the left bank of the Sauchet Water, and less than ¼ mile west of Stenton village on the other bank, is the mansion of Ruchlaw, a 17th-century house built by Archibald Sydserff and still occupied by his descendants. It is built on an L plan; the main block, 67 feet long by 21 feet broad, lying east and west and the wing, which contains a turnpike stair, projecting southward from the eastern end. The building is three storeys in height. The walls are built of a reddish rubble in courses and are covered with harling, but the plain backset dressed margins of the voids and the moulded Renaissance eaves course are left exposed; the gables are crowstepped.

On a modern porch, which has been built out in the re-entering angle, are two carved and inscribed triangular pediment stones, which have been removed from some other portion of the building. The first has, beneath two stars, a shield charged: within a bordure a fleur-de-lys between three cinquefoils two and one. Flanking the shield are the initials A S for Archibald Sydserff, the founder, and the date 1663. The second pediment has a quarter-foiled ornament comprising four fleur-de-lys conjoined at the stalk, flanked by initials A S with initials E S below and the date 1663.

Internally the house is modernised; the ground floor apartments were originally vaulted but all the vaults except that of the eastern chamber have been removed. Several of the windows have heavily moulded cases and astragals which appear to be of memel pine and contemporary with the house.

The building is in good condition.

SUNDIALS.

Within the walled garden south of the house are two sundials. The first is a 17th-century lectern dial 5 feet 8 inches high (fig. 83). The shaft is octagonal on plan and has a moulded necking, capital and base. The dial-stone is wrought into 35 dials; the gnoma have been of wrought iron and are completely oxidised. This dial is presumably not in situ having been re-erected in the 19th century (1).

The second dial is later and less interesting. The dial stone is a small, flat slab of white marble, has a wrought iron gnomon, and is inset in a red freestone baluster, the total height being 3 ½ feet. The marble slab bears an illegible inscription, usually taken to be ROUGHLAW.

DOVECOT.

Within a park 200 yards southwest of the house is a dovecot rectangular on plan and probably contemporary with the house.

HISTORICAL NOTE.

William 'Sydserff' of Ruchlaw is on record in 1623 (2); Mr. James, ‘Sydserfe’ of ‘Rouchla’ was in 1644, appointed to take control of the Whittinghame estates (3), and Archibald ‘Sydserfe’ of Ruchlaw (1666) was his son (4).

RCAHMS 1924, visited 24 April 1920.

(1) Cast. and Dom. Archit. v., p. 424; (2) Reg.Mag. Sig. s.a., No. 498; (3) Reg. Pr. Co. viii., (Second Series) p. 36; (4) Inquisit. Special. Hadd. No. 283.

OS Map ref.: xi. N.W.

Photographic survey of dovecots in East Lothian by the Scottish National Buildings Record in 1960-1962.