Common Ground (United Kingdom)

Common Ground is a United Kingdom charity and lobby group. Founded in 1982 by Susan Clifford and Angela King, Common Ground aims to promote "local distinctiveness" (a phrase which Common Ground coined during the 1980s).

Common Ground has always been a non-membership organisation (grant and donation-funded) with King and Clifford as co-ordinating directors and a small core staff, usually a team assembled for a specific project. Over the years these have included Darren Giddings, Daniel Keech, Jane Kendall, Beatrice Mayfield, Joanna Morland, John Newton, Kate O'Farrell, Helen Porter, Stephen Turner, Neil Sinden and Karen Wimhurst. Originally based in London, they have now settled in Toller Fratrum, Dorset. There are five honorary directors who provide guidance and assessment, including until his death in 2006 founder member Roger Deakin, author of the book Waterlog, a tribute to 'wild swimming'.

With roots in environmental and conservation groups such as Friends of the Earth, King and Clifford felt the commonplace was being overlooked at the expense of the special and rare. Common Ground was formed to address that. Throughout its existence, the organisation has introduced social and environmental ideas through a series of notable initiatives, often involving the connection of communities with artists. They have worked extensively with artists Andy Goldsworthy and Peter Randall-Page. New Milestones, in the late 1980s, brought sculptors into communities in South West England to make works sympathetic to the different landscapes there. Confluence (1998–2001) saw musicians (including animateur Helen Porter and composer Karen Wimhurst) working with community groups along the entire catchment of a river, the Stour in Southern England. Parish Maps encouraged people to make maps of their own places, signalling what was important to the people who lived there rather than dry cartography.

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