I’m in the beautiful Marshwood Vale at Fivepenny Farm, a 45-acre smallholding worked by David Saltmarsh, his wife Jyoti, and two friends who have a 50-50 share in the enterprise.

‘I’m originally from a little village in rural Essex called Great Saling,’ David tells me. ‘Dad was a carpenter and joiner and mum a florist. I left school as soon as I could and eventually found my way down to Somerset where I worked in a land-based community where no machinery was used. I worked in the forest where we extracted the trees using horses. We came here four years ago. It was all down to grass when we arrived but since then we’ve planted 2,000 trees and put in hedges.

We have 150 organic, free-range chickens whose eggs we sell at Bridport Market. We keep three breeding sows, a Tamworth-Saddleback cross boar and at the moment we have 20 piglets. We have 20 Jacob sheep and seven Jersey cows. We grow four acres of organic vegetables and have 80 mixed fruit trees – plums, pears and cherries. We were going to have apples and make cider but decided that it would be a better bet going for something slightly out of the ordinary – after all, there are still plenty of cider-makers in the area. We sell the veggies to local restaurants and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall takes some for his shop in Axminster.’

Close by the tiny house that David has built entirely of timber is a gleaming, thoroughly modern, state-of-the-art windmill. Even on this almost windless day its blades are turning. ‘We produce all our own electricity,’ David says proudly. ‘We have solar panels which even in winter are still very efficient. We don’t have a telly, that’s our choice, but we have a computer and a stereo.’

At this point I put it to him that they must be pretty near self-sufficient. ‘I don’t like that description,’ he replies. ‘We run a vehicle, we buy shoes and clothes and lots of things just like you do. We are what I term self-supporting.’

Talking to David it strikes me that far from being idyllic – a sort of ‘Good Life’ far from the pressures of the 21st century – it is a life that is very much about hard work. ‘We both work our backsides off! A 10-hour day, seven days a week, is the norm. We have four young daughters to look after as well, but somehow we still find time for a social life – it’s not all graft. We get together now and again with other smallholders for a pint of cider and a bit of networking.’

If all this were not enough, David finds time to make chairs. ‘Make’ is the operative word. He has brought me to his workshop, a place full of ancient-looking hand tools with blades that look as though they could do you a nasty injury. The air is heady with the smell of wood shavings, and a beautiful Windsor armchair stands in the corner.

Here’s David: ‘The chairs are based on traditional styles. I use traditional techniques and the only power tool I use is a chain saw when felling the trees. I use mostly ash, elm and oak and occasionally fruit woods, walnut and beech, and it all comes from the West Country. The wood is worked unseasoned, or ‘green’, and then the components of the chair are dried above my Rayburn and assembled when dry. I shape all the pieces by hand using traditional woodworking tools and a foot-powered pole lathe for the turned components. Curved pieces are bent using steam. I split wood out from straight-grained logs and work it down with an axe and drawknife. I cleave wood rather than ripsawing it because it maintains the structural integrity of the timber.’

David buys elm or oak boards from local sawmills. The boards are used to make the seats which are cut out using a turning saw, the predecessor of the band saw. David hollows out the curve of the seat using a combination of adze, inshave and travisher. ‘Old Windsors usually have only a slight hollowing,’ says David, ‘but ‘Fivepenny’ chairs have a deeper hollowing for more comfort. I drill the holes or ‘mortises’ in the chair using a brace and auger bit. This is probably the most difficult part of the whole job. An armchair may have up to 40 mortise-and-tenon joints and they all have to be angled precisely.’

I ask if he could one day see himself making chairs full time. ‘I wouldn’t want that,’ he replies firmly. ‘On average a Windsor arm chair takes between 60 and 90 hours of work and a side chair about 30 hours. It’s a paying hobby really but I would like to find the time to make one chair a month. I could sell all I make, but work on the farm will always come first. It’s an ambition to one day be able to work, say, four days on the farm and three days making chairs.’

Looking at the finished chair it’s easy to see why they are being snapped up as fast as David can make them. The degree of workmanship is staggering and if more evidence as to their quality were needed the framed certificates awarded by The Association of Pole-Lathe Turners that hang about the workshop proclaiming ‘Best in Show’ for 2007 and 2008 is proof aplenty.