u/Weird-Site-8216

Hi guys, I'm hoping to get some advice on this...

We are renovating our 1920s house and have just stripped the living room, we want to restore the fireplace to be bare brick. After knocking off all the old plaster and taking out a load of infill blocks above we were left with this big ugly concrete beam... Now I know it's there for a reason but can I replace it for a smaller/slimmer one to support the 'behind' course of bricks and then just have 2(ISH) courses of bricks in front for show? I hope this makes sense, hopefully the pictures will explain it better😂😂