Hmm. It seems modern construction techniques are quite different (moreso than I imagined) between the US and the UK. I've never seen the load-bearing porion of a house made of masonry in the US. But then, your link suggests that most houses have a facade made of masonry as well, which is only seen on about, at a guess, a third of the houses over here. (And that's near Sanford, NC, one of the ``brick capitals of the world''.) I guess it probably has to do with the differing amounts of wood historically available. It was probably much easier for American colonists to build wooden houses than to build stone ones based solely on resources availabe and it probably continued that way.

Regardless, how do internal walls work in these masonry-built houses? Surely there's not bare masonry exposed internally. And gypsum board is only about 50 years old. Is there strapping adhered to the masonry to which the plaster lath is attached? Is there any insulation involved at all?