This paper presents a new burner design for lean premixed stratified combustion for experiments to validate models for numerical simulations. The burner demonstrates combustion phenomena relevant to technological applications, where flames are often turbulent, lean premixed, and stratified. The generic burner was designed for high Reynolds number flows and can stabilize a variety of different lean premixed flames. The burner's design and its versatile operational conditions are introduced. Shear, stratification, and fuel type are parametrically varied to provide a sound database of related flow configurations. Reacting and corresponding non-reacting configurations are examined. Experimental setups and the results of laser Doppler velocimetry (LDV) and particle image velocimetry (PIV) are presented and discussed. LDV measurements provide radial profiles of mean axial velocity, mean radial velocity, and turbulent kinetic energy as well as integral time scales. High-speed PIV is introduced as a novel technique to determine integral time and length scales and provide 2D 2-component velocity fields and related quantities, such as vorticity. (C) 2009 The Combustion Institute. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.