Burnside was a gentleman's country house as opposed to a working farmhouse. The ground floor was taken up with servants' rooms, with a kitchen at the front and cellars going into the hill at the back. Steps led up to the front door and into the entrance hall with spacious front rooms on either side. Each of the two front rooms had three windows facing south. The high sloping roof had dormer windows for the third floor rooms, of which only two (each measuring twenty four square feet) had ceilings, while the rest of the area was a large open attic.