A POST explaining why tenements are different colours has delighted Glasgow history buffs. 

The tweet by former MP Paul Sweeney outlines the industrial history with resulted in the difference between tenements built with red sandstone and those built with blond sandstone. 

The former Labour representative for Glasgow North East explained in his post that blond sandstone was used before the 1890s, using stone from local quarries in Bishopbriggs and Giffnock. 

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After a rail link was built to Dumfries in the last decade of the 19th century, Glasgow builders began to use red sandstone from the south of Scotland.  

The post has garnered attention on social media and Mr Sweeney explained that Dumfries sandstone was not necessarily better than local materials but cheaper. 

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He wrote: "[Red sandstone was] cheaper as the Dumfries quarries were newer and easier to work than the local quarries that had already been heavily depleted during Glasgow's 19th-century expansion.

"They couldn't be expanded using the open cast method, so used the more expensive pillar and stall method."