It is only in the last hundred years or so that Tracing Boards, pre-prepared and increasingly standardised, have become commonplace. In operative masonry, the tracing board is not a diagram but a plain board for the master to lay lines and draw designs upon - in other words, to depict the detail of the intended structure.
    The earliest reference to the use of a Tracing Board as a symbol of the Lodge appears in the Carmick Manuscript of 1727, where “this figure represents the Lodge”. However, common practice appears to have been for the Master or Tyler to draw the design appropriate to the degree upon the lodge floor. The newly initiated apprentice then erased this with a mop and a pail of water. And whilst one swears not to “write those secrets, indite, carve, mark, engrave or otherwise them delineate”, practicalities clearly dictated that some less movable depiction of the Lodge be developed. Floor cloths, wall-charts and making-boards met this need for convenience, and in 1733 a resolution was passed in the King’s Arms Lodge “for a proper delineation to be made on canvas for use at initiations”.
    Convenient this may have been, popular it clearly was not, since only two years later a further motion in the same lodge called for it to be defaced. Furthermore, in 1759, the Scottish Grand Lodge condemned the Lodge of S.Andrews for having a floor cloth painted which was to be seen hanging publicly in a shop!
    Towards the end of the 18th century a consensus slowly emerged as to the display of the grouping of the components of the First Degree Tracing Board, and the modern board owes much to the work of three London brethren: Bros Jacobs, Bowring and Harris, between 1780 and 1820. An early 20th century authority, W Bro Dring, credits the 1819 Bowring Board with being the most correct.
    As to the name ‘Tracing Board’, there has been much written. What appears likely is that floor cloths were supported on trestles, with weighted tassels to hold the design taut, suspended from each corner. French drawn cloths were supported on ‘planches à tracèr’ - from which the evolution of the word ‘Tracing’, and thus ‘Tracing Board’ appears to be a natural progress.
    In the First Degree, the Master addresses the candidate, saying, “from the foundation laid this evening, you may raise a superstructure perfect in its parts and honourable to the builder”. The builder is clearly not just the candidate, but also the Great Architect of the Universe. The initiatory rite is concerned with reminding the candidate of his past physical, mental and spiritual development, and acts as a guide to his future progress in Masonry, and prepares him for the future in the after-life. The First Degree Tracing Board is thus integral to the Initiation, since it contains the very basics of the whole system of masonic development.
    In Masonry, the process of human endeavour is symbolised by the Architect, who conceives in his mind of a building, and draws out a design containing the essential elements of the whole structure. The Board offers the candidate a glimpse of what is beyond, and implies the development - or ascent - he will have to make to reach it. Symbols of the degrees rest on the horizontal plane, while the many-runged ladder climbs from the Great Lights of Masonry: the Volume of the Sacred Law, Square and Compasses. Consequently, whilst the Tracing Board depicts the Lodge, it also depicts the Craft as a whole - all lodges - the Fraternity past, present and future.
    Interpretations of the tessellated border and chequered pavement are varied. W Bro MacNulty argues that the light and dark squares represent paired opposites: good and evil, mercy and justice, reward and punishment and so forth, fitting together with exactness to form the Pavement, a single thing, a unity. The border, he feels, binds it together into a single symbol. On the other hand, W Bro Bridge believes the border to be no more than a representation of the folds into which a floor cloth would fall when draped over trestles with weighted tassels holding it taut from each corner.
    The three pillars, Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, are depicted by the three main orders of architecture, respectively the Ionic (middle) for Wisdom, the Doric (left) for Strength, and the Corinthian (right) for Beauty. These columns may justly be said to depict the three principal officers of the Lodge, or the three degrees. However, it is interesting to note at this point the Renaissance Cabalist notion of the ‘Tree of Life’, wherein the column on the right (Beauty) is called the Column of Mercy, on the left (Strength) the Column of Severity, and in the centre (Wisdom) the Column of Consciousness. The passive column, the active column, and the column of equilibrium. Thus the three pillars represent a universe in which, as W Bro MacNulty points out, “...expansive and constraining forces are held in balance by a co-ordinating agency”.
    The allusion of the three columns to the three Principal Officers is echoed in the representation of the Junior Warden by the Rough Ashlar, for it is he who is traditionally in charge of the Apprentices. Of the Senior Warden by the Perfect Ashlar of the Fellow-Craft; and of the Master by the Tracing Board and Square of the Master Mason - the point on which he is raised and from which he cannot materially stray.
    The ascent of the ladder, the endeavours of the Master Mason, commences at the perfect points of his entrance. It is here that the Board leaves the horizontal and enters the third dimension, the vertical. As a bridge crosses water, the ladder offers safe passage through air (or spirit), with rungs symbolising steps, as degrees of attainment. The number of rungs varies with the design of the Boards, and their number is arbitrary. The extension of the rungs past the parallels symbolises the variety of roads that lead to the heights, and point out the moral virtues required. Traditionally, our Board points out the three principal moral virtues: Faith, Hope and Charity.
    Earlier Boards depicted symbols rather than strange allegorical figures ascending the ladder. The Parallels, representing the Cross of the earth and its suffering; the Key, representing the judgement that will come; the Anchor, connecting the Earth to the Underworld, pulling it up; and the Cup received by the Hand, stretching from the Brightness that is the Glory, the Great Architect of the Universe.

Summary

So what is the Tracing Board? It is an allegorical representation of the Lodge and Principal Officers. It is a depiction of the endeavours we must all undergo in the search for self-improvement. The Board is a unity of contrasting opposites, controlled by Wisdom, Strength and Beauty, pointing out the reward for our efforts in the Blazing Glory. But more than that, it is a representation of Freemasonry, of each of the degrees, unveiling a little of what the Entered Apprentice shall seek during his progress.