The Origins & History of the Tracing Board

A Masonic Talk by Clive Moore. 12 A5 pages including many illustrations, plus illustrated covers.

The tracing boards are now immovable jewels in our Masonic Lodges; but they are also a fascinating reminder of an operative past and the early days of speculative Freemasonry. They have literally sat at the centre of our lodges for nearly 300 years; and this talk traces that history, although there are some gaps in our knowledge, and their development was far from consistent geographically or chronologically.

The author does not delve deeply into the Masonic symbolism of our tracing boards, but instead concentrates on how they developed from the first lodge floor drawings. He describes the different roles they have played in our lodges, and traces their history from the Mesopotamian Prince Gudea of c2100 BCE, through medieval stonemasonry, and up to the present day; noting the different forms they have taken, including crude chalk drawings, floor cloths, folding boards, and more recently illuminated panels.