u/portlandlad123

Managed to crop and enhance the drawing of the scratches from my post about tracing floors. Realised that you can't insert new images when you edit a post or comment images. Someone commented it would make a nice print so here is the improved image.

Noticed also you can see the design from the top right corner is a scale drawing of the tracery in the windows of the cloister! It's called a double centred arch. It is missing some of the foils but was probably meant to show the main architectural element.

Apparentlybafter being scratched, the image would then be cut around a template that could then be taken and checked against the stone.

Essentially the mediaeval operative origin of the Tracing Board. Before the fancy painted/printed boards we have today the lodge was drawn on the floor in chalk or charcoal, just as the operative masters drew or scratched their designs on the floor into plaster. This one is above the north porch of Wells Cathedral (England's first gothic cathedral) with the other being in York Minster above the chapter house porch. Design elements are still visible in the plaster. Elements had to be drawn life size as there was no sense of scaling things up/down and when you ran out of space you plastered over it and started fresh. Cool to see and you can imagine a master up there on his hands and knees with a line, nails, compass and rule scratching the floor with the design in his head.