Common Ground was founded in 1983 by Sue Clifford, Angela King and the writer Roger Deakin to seek imaginative ways to engage people with their local environment. The idea of Local Distinctiveness is at the heart of everything we do, and for the last thirty years we have captured the imagination of people all over the country by creating projects like Apple Day, Parish Maps and New Milestones, all of which continue to inspire our new projects and unearth the strong

A major illustrated book, England In Particular, which is an A-Z of Local Distinctiveness, was published by Hodder & Stoughton in 2006.