I am in an old local authority property and have two old pantry
cupboards (joined) in the kitchen which I would like to remove to
provide more room for a fitted kitchen. As local authority houses are
fairly well built these cupboards have solid brick walls.

Two questions:

1) How likely are these cupboards to be supporting walls?

2) How do I find out if there are or not? (don't say knock them down
please!)

Pic 1 is outer view of cupboards: http://www.btinternet.com/~jonni/1.JPG

Pic 2 is up inside view: http://www.btinternet.com/~jonni/2.JPG

Does it really require the skills of an engineer to determine whether
something is load bearing or not?

TIA

John