Burden was an artist and teacher, born and finally settled in Worcester, who studied at Birmingham College of Art, 1945–50, under Bernard Fleetwood-Walker and Katherine Fryer, then at Bath Academy of Art, 1950–1, with William Scott and Peter Potworowski. She painted buildings with figures, landscapes and still lifes in a richly individual palette. She named Christopher Wood and L S Lowry as influences on her pictures, which could be endearingly quirky and which were also “influenced by surroundings and memories, subject-matter close at hand – everywhere I look."