Scottish house construction is definitely quite a bit flimsier now than it was 150-200 years ago though... I lived in Edinburgh for a few years, and most of th

Scottish house construction is definitely quite a bit flimsier now than it was 150-200 years ago though... I lived in Edinburgh for a few years, and most of the apartments I lived in were built in the 19th century (maybe the 18th; I forget the details, but there were several major housing booms in Edinburgh back then). They all had walls made of stone blocks like half a meter thick, and that was typical for buildings from that era, which account for a huge proportion of the city-center housing stock. New suburban houses I saw, on the other hand, seemed liked they'd blow over in a stiff wind (something there was a plentiful supply of), and of course were ugly to boot... [OTOH, it turned out that in one of the places I lived, the drinking-water tank was made of lead...! >< So if my comments seem kinda dumb... TT ]