Most of us like peering into the past – some people live, eat and breathe nostalgia while others join all manner of clubs and societies and follow endless pursuits designed to bring the best out of yesteryear. But going as far as to run an actual business making old-fashioned tools like the ones used by our rural ancestors centuries ago might seem like either an act of commercial suicide or some kind of National Lottery-backed museum experiment.

Neither of which comes anywhere near the truth at an extraordinary mill in the heart of Devon where the craftsman in charge just keeps on making things like antediluvian billhooks in the same way that he and his forebears have always done.

That's not entirely true – there are machines at the A Morris and Sons workshop that are most definitely not out of the Ark – but you certainly won't see any computer screens or anything else that links the place to the 21st century.

Gigantic hammers pack a punch capable of stopping a Sherman tank – indeed Richard Morris, who runs the place, told me: "They're the trip-hammers we use – one of them is actually dated 1890 – and we still use it every time we make a batch of tools."

There are belts and other moving elements of manufacture which whizz round as if linked direct to some gizmo designed in the time of Dickens. There are piles of sawdust around the lathe where the wooden handles are turned and, nearby, great blades and sharp edges are honed as if they are Samurai swords.

For that is what A Morris and Sons do: they make "edged tools" – and the implements themselves are works of art that have far more to do with history books than just about anything that goes on in modern-day Britain.

Except that's not entirely true either – because there are people in this high-tech modern world of ours who yearn for the quiet, natural, way things used to be and who would rather, for example, dress a hedgerow using a handheld tool than a giant tractor.

I first called in at Morris and Sons some 30 years ago with a thatcher friend who was buying a set of new sharp-edged tools for his lofty work – and can still remember the remarkable look of the place which seemed to me more like a film set designed as a backdrop for a Thomas Hardy novel.

Passing Dunsford, tucked deep in the Teign Valley under the eastern flanks of Dartmoor the other day, I couldn't resist calling in to see if the place had changed much.

It hadn't. I was given a grand tour by friendly proprietor Richard Morris and this is what he told me…

"My father and grandfather came down in 1931 to work for a chap whose family had the place since 1824.

"It's always been a forge, but I suppose you could say that nowadays, we are the only ones left using this sort of equipment.

"There are other people who make some of these tools, but most of them will do it in, how can I say, a much more industrialised way. You wouldn't find another place like this – making these tools in the way we do – anywhere else in Britain."

Richard thought for a moment and added: "A few might make some of the tools – but not the variety we do. We make a lot of different edged-tools – I expect there are about 50 variations – but there will be about ten main types. Then there are the ones we don't get to make so often – the odds and sods.

"We don't do wrought iron work – or we prefer not to," he went on. "We leave that to the blacksmiths. We use carbon steel which actually comes from Sheffield – we then plate it out and grind it, and everything else."

Richard explained: "There are three processes. We plate the tools, which is to make them or cut them to shape. Then we planish them to flatten them."

Planishing is a skill that was first devised in medieval times when people were making suits of armour and is basically the process of tapping metal into specific shapes with a hammer.

"Then most of our tools have a tang – and we have to get them hot again to get that," said Richard. "It's the bit of metal that goes back into the handle."

To be honest, some of the tools made at the mill look pretty fearsome despite the fact that they have been designed or have evolved for innocent workmanlike purposes – which prompted me to ask Richard if he really was the Westcountry version of a Samurai sword-maker.

"They should certainly all be sharp-edged," he shrugged. "I suppose you could say we are this region's answer to a Samurai sword-maker – but not really. They are very thin, whereas ours are made for completely different purposes."

At this point, he chuckled to himself: "A long time ago, we were watching the TV news and we saw one of our hooks being used in the Toxteth riots.

"It was one of those," Richard sighed, pointing to a long, curving blade. "It's a brush-hook for going through brambles."

It's strange how such an item can look so perfectly innocent in a country garden – and so horrifically dangerous on a city street.

We talked for a while about the real, peaceful and agrarian uses for which his tools are designed – and I asked if they'd changed much down the years.

"The only thing I can think that's changed much since my grandfather's day is that they'd do up to 13-inch long billhooks – now we only do the nine-and-a-half inch – perhaps people were stronger back then.

"I came here when I was 21 and worked in the office, but when the place was closed down in 1981, my father and me and my brother bought it," Richard explained when I asked about the ownership of the endeavour. "Before that, we worked for another company – but then we were forced to buy it because we lived in a company house.

"We make to order and it all goes through a wholesaler," he went on. "Mostly customers don't come to the door. People only come here because they see the waterwheel outside.

"We do very little direct to shops because it involves repping and everything else.

"The eventual users will be people like hedge-layers – quite a few (billhooks) now are sold to people who hold courses on hedge-laying. People do that for relaxation.

"Thatchers use our tools – and we also make shears, but we haven't done any for a little while. That tiny one you're looking at is a willow hook," said Richard as I peered at a particularly fine-looking little blade on his bench.

"The hooks do get very specific – they're made for particular jobs. Then there are the old patterns – the Devon, New Town, Staffordshire, and things like that. They come from the places where they were popular. Where they were used. Actually, the shapes aren't that much different.

"But over the centuries, they evolved a type of hook – the Staffordshire for example is usually double-edged because they're mainly dealing with blackthorn.

"We do the Devon billhook and that's got a little cut-out on the bottom. That's a New Town there – I think that's a variation of the Welsh one – there are hundreds of New Towns around the place.

"That's a mattock," said Richard when I picked up the kind of garden tool you'd find in a museum of rural life. "But we don't do very many of those because they're not the nicest job in the world."

And talking of museums – how did Richard regard the future of an industry that related so directly to the distant past? Was there, I asked, a way the business could develop and grow?

"There's only my brother's boy helping me here at the moment. To be perfectly honest, these days I don't think we could afford a youngster to employ," he shrugged.

"I suppose this is a dying trade – but we're still here. In the old days, everyone had these tools – everything was done by hand. Most of that went – but a lot of it is coming back with people taking up smallholdings and everything."

I picked up a billhook that would have suited my own humble acre and asked Richard how much it would cost me: "You can't have it," he replied. "It's made for an order – and I don't know what these things sell for. People charge what they think."

I couldn't help but conclude that this delightful man and his wonderful old-fashioned business really were on a different and altogether far more pleasant planet than the thrusting industrialists and financiers who rule the earth today. My own thrusting new ambition is to find someone who will sell me one of Richard's fantastically useful billhooks.