It was here that William Penn, with Benjamin Hayler, oversaw the conversion of John Shaw’s timber-framed house, Little Slatter, into a permanent Quaker meeting house between 1691 and 1694. William and his family were regular worshippers here, being located in Oldhouse Lane, near the hamlet of Coolham, at the northern end of Thakeham parish and only around 4 miles from his home. His daughter Letitia was married here on 20th August 1702 and laid to the rest in the burial ground in 1746. Penn’s unnamed daughter who died soon after birth on 26th March 1683, may have been buried here too. This is now better known as the Blue Idol, so named after the blue wash on the plaster infill and its period of inactivity (idle-ness) in the 18th/19th centuries. It is still used by the Society of Friends as a meeting house.