ABSTRACT
Nothing is known of bishops' houses in England before the Conquest, if indeed there was such a category; it would probably not be recognized in an excavation even if it were found. After 1066 in the huge infusion of new material culture, it was not merely the new cathedral forms that were introduced into the country but also those of its chief appurtenance, the bishop's palace. There seems to be an almost universal tendency to replace an earlier small hall with a larger new structure, retaining the earlier one for the private use of the bishop. The idea that the aisled hall is a modified native-style hall, as suggested, seems quite compatible with evidence from bishops' houses, which indeed reinforces it. In Wales there are no aisled halls, although Peter Smith's great book on the vernacular architecture of the principality shows how widespread their derivatives are in the timber-framing areas of the north east.
