In simpler times, everyone slept on sprung beds. A few rebels opted for futons (or even waterbeds), but back in the 20th century, most of us had mattresses with tufted surfaces and a belly full of springs that bounced when you jumped on them.
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Memory foam began sneaking into our beds in the 90s, ushering in a brave new world of cushioned peace. Most of the products I’ve considered for the Filter’s best mattresses roundup contain memory foam layers to boost comfort and limit bounce. But traditional sprung beds remain unstoppably popular, and one example – the Millbrook Wool Luxury 4000 – is a bestseller at Mattress Online.
I slept on the Millbrook during some of the hottest weeks of the summer, that annual ordeal of fruit flies and night sweats. Memory foam is notorious for trapping heat, so this seemed a good time to find out whether Millbrook’s old-fashioned breathable design could help me stay cool and get a decent sleep.
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How I tested
Besides firmness and comfort, the mattress was tested for sinkage, motion isolation, heat retention and edge support. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn/The Guardian
I was sent a double-size Millbrook Wool Luxury 4000 in early May, when the days were warm but the nights reassuringly cool. My family testing panel came over to rate it out of 10 for firmness and comfort when it was fresh from its wrapping. They also helped me run lab-style experiments with heat pads, weights and wobbly cups of water to measure its sinkage, motion isolation, heat retention and edge support.
My husband, Alan, and I slept on the Millbrook for six weeks until late June. By then, the heatwave had descended, and Alan had moved to the spare room. (Don’t judge. When it’s 28C in your bedroom at night, the last thing it needs is another human.) This gave me a chance to test the mattress as a solo sleeper on some of the muggiest nights of the year.
What you need to know, from price to firmness
There are actually 5,000 springs in the Luxury 4000. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn/The GuardianView at Mattress OnlineView at B&Q
The Millbrook Wool Luxury 4000 is affordable for a pocket-sprung mattress of such hefty construction. Its RRP is high (£1,214.63 for a double), but Millbrook sells this mattress only through third-party retailers, which normally knock off hundreds of pounds. Mattress Online has the double for £615.94, while B&Q was asking for £620 at the time of writing. Mattress Online’s prices range from £453.57 for a single to £1,146.20 for the superking zip and link.
The Luxury 4000 sits in the middle of Millbrook’s range of pocket-sprung mattresses, both in terms of price and spring count. The most affordable is the Wool Ortho 1000 (£415.20 for a double) and the most luxurious is the Supreme Collection 11,000 (£1,899), which has more than 10 times the number of springs of its cheapest cousin.
There are actually 5,000 springs in the Luxury 4000: one layer of 1,000 large pocket springs between two layers of 2,000 “Comfonomic” micro springs that add bounce and help offset the firmness of the pocket springs.
Most pocket-sprung mattresses, even the budget Ikea Valevåg, use other materials to cushion the springs. That doesn’t make them hybrids (“hybrid” usually means a mattress that contains memory foam, gel or latex as well as springs), but it does make them more sophisticated than the cheap fabric-wrapped boxes of springs that you may have slept on as a child. The Millbrook contains 11 layers in all, including cotton, silk, “cashgora” – from cross-breeding cashmere and angora goats – and wool sourced from Millbrook’s Hampshire locale.
One of the mattress’s tufts is black, to represent a black sheep. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn/The Guardian
The viscose-cotton cover is tufted with Hampshire wool, and one of the tufts is black to represent a black sheep – a lovely touch. The edges are stitched and reinforced with a metal rod for extra support, so you can’t remove the cover to stick it in the washing machine as you can with the Otty Original Hybrid or the Simba Hybrid Pro.
The mattress is double-sided and needs regular turning to avoid dents where you sleep. Full disclosure: Alan and I left it more than two weeks before we flipped the mattress in exasperation at the dents we’d created – and only then realised we should have been turning it once a week for the first month. This is a more frequent flip recommendation than many mattresses, and also unfortunate, because the Millbrook is an absolute beast to manoeuvre.
At 28cm deep and a thumping 65kg for the double, this behemoth is one of the heaviest mattresses I’ve ever tested. Even Millbrook suggests that you “seek assistance” when turning it, so bad luck if you live alone. At least you’re helped by having two turn handles on each end as well as along each side.
Millbrook describes the Luxury 4000 as “medium to firm”. This was accurate initially, but it’s no more than medium once you’ve slept on it for a few weeks. Before sleep-testing, my family scored it 8/10 for firmness, and it sank a maximum of 19mm under 7.5kg of weight. After one month, it scored 7/10 and sank 35mm. This is within the 40mm “acceptable settlement” specified by Millbrook and is caused by the compression of fibre layers.
You get a 10-year warranty, although you’ll have to register your mattress within 60 days of purchase to benefit from it. Mattress Online also offers a 60-night trial, during which you can return it for an exchange if you don’t get on with it.
Specifications
Type: pocket sprung
Firmness: advertised as medium to firm; testing panel rated as 8/10, then 7/10
Depth: 28cm
Cover: not removable
Turn or rotate: turn weekly for four months, then every month
Trial period: 60 nights
Warranty: 10 years once registered
Old mattress recycling: £35 with Mattress Online if you buy a new mattress
Sustainability credentials: Millbrook Beds uses no memory foam or chemical treatments; all fabrics and fillings are “from sustainable sources”; Planet Mark certified
Delivery
Unusually, the mattress arrived mattress-shaped. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn/The Guardian
The Millbrook was the first mattress I’ve tested that arrived mattress-shaped, rather than vacuum-shrunk into a plastic-wrapped sausage. It was shipped by Mattress Online and delivered the next day by AIT, whose drivers offered to carry it to any room but left it in the hallway as requested.
I should’ve taken them up on the offer. Alan and I got it upstairs with some difficulty (Alan was literally doing all the heavy lifting there). We found it relatively easy to unpack thanks to the absence of shrink-wrap polyurethane, although there was still plenty of plastic sheeting to take to the dump.
The Millbrook was ready to test and sleep on immediately, and there was none of the chemical “off-gassing” smell that I’ve experienced with memory foam hybrid mattresses.
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What we love
‘The Millbrook’s edge support is the best of any mattress I’ve tested.’ Photograph: Jane Hoskyn/The Guardian
The Millbrook Wool Luxury 4000 was Goldilocks-perfect at first, neither too firm nor too soft. Its upper layers yielded quite a bit over the weeks, and I was less disappointed than my husband about this: I liked the way it cradled my hips, knees and shoulders when I slept on my side. If you live with joint pain, you’ll welcome the pressure relief.
Night sweats weren’t completely avoidable, because no mattress can actively cool you down on a sweltering night – it can just avoid trapping your heat. The Millbrook genuinely helped me dial down the sogginess, but couldn’t stop it completely. I’ll be interested to see if its temperature-regulating powers help in winter, too, when I’ll be seeking warmth rather than trying to escape it.
After Alan left for the solitary cool of the spare room, I often found myself switching to his vacant side of the bed halfway through the night. Not only was it drier, but it also felt firmer, because the fabric layers had decompressed and regained their full size. This would help to explain why the mattress benefits from such frequent turning. The compression of the layers never felt like sagging, in the way that memory foam can.
The Millbrook’s edge support is the best of any mattress I’ve tested. The edges are so robust that they sink significantly less under weights than the middle of the mattress does; about 1cm less under 7.5kg of hand weights. The edges lost no height at all after we’d slept on the Millbrook for a few weeks, either. As well as making it easy to get in and out of bed, this strong edge support suggests that the Luxury 4000 has the durability to last many years.
What we don’t love
‘Tossing and turning was more noticeable than on a hybrid.’ Photograph: Jane Hoskyn/The Guardian
The comfort layers gave the Millbrook slightly better motion isolation than the Ikea Valevåg, but it’s still no match for memory foam when it comes to absorbing the bounce of springs. Its hilly surface made it difficult to test motion isolation with a glass of water, but test it we did – and the results were messy enough to confirm our suspicions that our tossing and turning was more noticeable than on a hybrid.
Even though I like a bit of cushioning, I felt slightly cheated when the initially firm surface gradually smushed beneath me – I could see and feel the indentation where my body had been lying. The surface decompressed quickly when not being slept on, which I liked, but that’s not much help when you’re craving more pushback in the middle of the night.
I didn’t feel much benefit from the Millbrook’s “ErgoZone 7” zoned layout, which uses thicker-gauge wires for firmer support under your hips, head and feet. This may be because I’m barely 5ft (152cm) on tiptoes, and the world and its mattresses tend to be designed for adult men. But then Alan – 5ft 10in (178cm) and average weight – didn’t seem able to find the firm zones either.
Sustainability
The natural fibre covers and fillings make the mattress sustainable and durable. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn/The Guardian
Memory foam is one of the least sustainable materials used in furnishings, and its absence here gives the Millbrook the best environmental credentials of any mattress I’ve reviewed. Even the simplest pocket-sprung mattresses usually contain synthetic material, such as the polyfoam in the Ikea Valevåg. Millbrook’s decision to use only natural, biodegradable fibres for its soft covers and fillings adds to the price, but has considerable benefits in sustainability and durability.
Millbrook Beds’ Sustainable Sleep page is full of information about its materials and practices. Neither wool nor cashgora is vegan, but Millbrook sources the wool locally in Hampshire. The mattress’s cotton content involves a more emission-heavy journey because it’s grown in the US, but it is at least natural, renewable and biodegradable.
All Millbrook mattresses are treated to meet flame-retardant standards using “a fully biological solution”. This has helped the company earn certification by sustainability bodies Planet Mark and Sedex.
Millbrook Wool Luxury 4000: should I buy it?
Besides the plastic wrap it comes in, the Luxury 4000 is a more environmentally friendly option than memory foam mattresses. Photograph: Jane Hoskyn/The Guardian
Buy this mattress if you love the breathability of a pocket-sprung bed – and sleep well knowing that it’s more environmentally friendly than a memory foam hybrid. The Millbrook doesn’t retain heat in the way that foam can, and its wool layers can help regulate your body’s temperature through the sweaty and shivery excesses of summer and winter. Just be aware that it may feel too soft if you like your beds on the orthopaedic side, and its weekly turning requirements will be a real challenge if you live alone.
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Jane Hoskyn is a consumer journalist and WFH pioneer with three decades of experience in rearranging bookshelves and ‘testing’ coffee machines while deadlines loom. Her work has made her a low-key expert in all manner of consumables, from sports watches to solar panels. She would always rather be in the woods