This has to be one of my favourite nonfiction books in my collection. England in Particular written by Sue Clifford and Angela King is a brilliant A-Z of all things England and its countryside.

With over five hundred pages of folklore, traditions, countryside practices, landmarks and much more, it really is a celebration of English life both rural and urban.

Sue Clifford and Angela King were the co-founders of Common Ground, a Dorset based charity designed to provide a link between nature and local culture to celebrate and revive local customs and traditions. It was co-founded with the late and very great nature writer Roger Deakin in 1983 and future directors included Richard Mabey. Theirs was a more radical approach to environmental issues than that of their former colleagues at Friends of the Earth who seemed less in touch with ‘smaller’ more localised issues. The group’s name derives from Mabey’s excellent book The Common Ground published in 1980.

England in Particular is a remarkable piece of work. It is full of long lost names and practices as well as reminders of times gone by or the significance of a particular tree, plant or landmark.

So a taste of what’s covered: allotments, almshouses, bell-ringing, chalk streams, drove roads, earth stations, fences skating, green lanes, hare pie scramble, hawthorn, heathland, kerbstones, maypole, nobbies, penny hedge, river names, rush bearing, sea forts, toll houses, wassailing, yew…

The book is richly illustrated throughout, the style perfectly in keeping with the text. Like the Common Ground itself, it feels like a call to arms for communities to come together and celebrate both their uniqueness and similarities. The counties of England form a rich tapestry of tradition, folklore, invention and language. There is much to be proud of and celebrated, we have lost a lot in the pursuit of technological advancement and this book sets out to redress the balance. I believe it’s more important than ever to look back and retrieve words, lore and tradition which are inextricably linked to nature and the landscape.