Young Blonde Girl On The Old Brick Wall

Bricks are also used in the metallurgy and glass industries for lining furnaces. They have various uses, especially refractory bricks such as silica, magnesia, chamotte and neutral (chromomagnesite) refractory bricks. This type of brick must have good thermal shock resistance, refractoriness under load, high melting point, and satisfactory porosity. There is a large refractory brick industry, especially in the United Kingdom, Japan and the United States.
In the United Kingdom, bricks have been used in construction for centuries. Until recently, almost all houses were built almost entirely from bricks. Although many houses in the UK are now built using a mixture of concrete blocks and other materials, many houses are skinned with a layer of bricks on the outside for aesthetic appeal.
In the UK a redbrick university is one founded and built in the Victorian era, often as a technical college. The term is used as differentiation from older, more classics-oriented universities.