As built, Great Burlings was an early C19 symmetrical detached villa, of two storeys and three bays built of brick, but stuccoed with incised lines to imitate the much more expensive ashlar masonry, and with a shallow pitched slate roof with end chimneystacks. Buildings of this type were fairly numerous and it is likely to have been built by a local builder from a pattern book rather than a named architect because the front elevation is plain with a central blank instead of a window and the elliptical tops to the ground floor windows and the six panelled door provide the only decoration. ... The plan as built comprised a central staircase with a main room on the ground floor on either side and smaller rooms to the rear. Originally there was a detached late C18 or early C19 brick and flint bake house to the rear of the house. However, in the mid C19 [after 1844] and certainly by 1862, a taller two storey link block of local flint with red brick dressings was built to connect the two buildings and provide a large drawing room on the ground floor and more bedrooms above. This was built with sash windows facing south towards the garden but with no openings at all on the north side as entrance into this part was provided through the earlier wings. This wing is built of attractive local materials and the windows are intact but it is not of high design quality.

Great Burlings an early C19 symmetrical stuccoed villa, linked to a former contemporary bake house by a
mid C19 flint and brick link block, is not recommended for statutory listing for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: the eastern part, an early C19 villa, is plain and the mid-C19 link block, although built of attractive local materials, is not of high design quality;
* Degree of alteration: both the early C19 villa and bake house have lost their original windows and the villa now has a C20 porch. The villa retains a plain straight flight staircase and a few original doors but has lost its ground floor internal partitions and original fireplaces. The bake house has lost its chimney, had most of its west wall rebuilt in the C20 and the ground floor was refurbished in the C20;
* Historic interest: the property has local historical interest as one of the four chief residences of Knockholt circa 1870 but there is no connection with any person or events of national importance. (1)

<1> English Heritage, 2013, English Heritage (Listing) Advice Report for Great Burlings including former bake house, & Stables (Unpublished document). SKE18123.