The house belonged to George Borrow's maternal grandfather, Samuel Perfrement, who farmed the adjacent land at this time.

Samuel and Mary Perfrement had eight children, the third of whom, Ann, was born in 1772.
In February 1793 Ann Perfrement, aged twenty-one, married Thomas Borrow, aged thirty-five, in the Parish Church of East Dereham, and of the two children that were born to them George Henry Borrow was the younger.
Thomas Borrow was the son of one John Borrow of St.Cleer in Cornwall, who died before this child was born, and is described by his grandson[3] as the scion 'of an ancient but reduced Cornish family, tracing descent from the de Burghs, and entitled to carry their arms.' This claim, of which I am thoroughly sceptical, is endorsed by Dr.
Knapp,[4] who, however, could find no trace of the family earlier than 1678, the old parish registers having been destroyed.

When Thomas Borrow was born the family were in any case nothing more than small farmers, and Thomas Borrow and his brothers were working on the land in the intervals of attending the parish school.

At the age of eighteen Thomas was apprenticed to a maltster at Liskeard, and about this time he joined the local Militia.

Tradition has it that his career as a maltster was cut short by his knocking his master down in a scrimmage.