Welcome to this web site from
Common Ground
Our interest is in LOCAL DISTINCTIVENESS. This website is about ways of looking. One of the best ways of savouring a place is by walking, alone and with others.
Our hope is that by drawing attention to the detail and diversity of places, we might excite you into wanting to see your own place and places you journey to and through with fresh eyes.
Why England in particular?
The rich range of peoples and places in England is more than enough to start with we hope to see the world in this grain of sand.
As a start we offer a series of pathways which may lure you into going the long way round. These are just a few ways of navigating the great common wealth of nature, landscapes, settlements, buildings, histories, myths and stories, always on the move, which in their interweaving give us the rich and variegated particularity of our surroundings.
The CUCKOO is an example ...
We need to confront the paradox of LOCAL DISTINCTIVENESS - our surroundings are dynamic, questing nature, new people and ideas, cultural shifts, climatic change, new technologies and economic imperatives. Some of these enrich, some homogenise and deplete. We are looking for the positive, good examples of change THE BEST OF THE NEW.
Read more about the idea of LOCAL DISTINCTIVENESS in the essay "Losing Your Place"
Look at the project newsletter PARTICULAR NEWS.
See a list of documents, newsletters and media releases available for download
