Sydserf

The lands and barony of Sydserf lay in East Lothian but the main estate was later to be called Ruchlaw. The lands were probably named after St Serf. Nisbet suggests that the arms bear the royal fleurs de lis of France, and that the family are of noble French origin. Marior de Sydserfe appears on the Ragman Roll of 1296, swearing homage to Edward I of England for his lands near Edinburgh. William de Sideserf also appears on the roll. The name appears in the register of the Privy Council of Scotland in 1577, as ‘Sydserf of that Ilk’. William Sydserf of Ruchlaw received a Crown charter to his lands in 1619. His son, Sir Alexander Sydserf, was a prominent Edinburgh baillie who signed the National Covenant, in defence of presbyterianism, in 1639. He was also a royalist in the civil war and was taken prisoner in 1651, but he was knighted after the Restoration in 1660. Martha Sydserf, the heiress to Ruchlaw, married Francis Buchan, a scion of the chiefly house of Auchmacoy, in 1791. The family, which is still represented today, were thereafter styled ‘Buchan-Sydserf’.