A wool mattress is what you’d call a ‘traditional’ choice for a mattress.
They’re made in a tried-and-tested way. My mother would probably want a wool mattress after watching a feature on Countryfile about sheep shearing.
Wool is a naturally breathable material which can add a bit of comfort to a mattress. It is generally used alongside pocket sprung mattresses. They’re the type of mattresses that most of us have been sleeping on our whole lives. The idea is that the wool will help you stay cool in bed. You can do your own punchline to that sentence.
Scientific research into the benefits of a wool mattress
There’s some solid science behind using a wool mattress. According to a Woolmark guide to wool clothing, wool is ‘hygroscopic’. That means it ‘absorbs water vapour from its surrounding environment far more effectively than other common apparel fibres’.
They reckon that wool is able to ‘protect the body against changes in temperature and moisture levels’. The blog is focused on its breathable benefits for exercise. However, the same principles can be applied to mattresses and blankets where you want to maintain a consistent temperature.
Woolmark conclude that wool has a ‘water vapour uptake’ of more than 30%. Cotton achieves below 20% and synthetic polyester is below 5%.
If you’re interested in the technical side of it, take a look at this study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, They concluded that ‘The ability of wool to absorb a relatively large amount of water compared with other fibres, without feeling wet, comes from the matrix proteins, which are richer in sulfur‘.
Can a wool mattress help you sleep better?
An Australian academic study from the 1980s into the benefits of wool is also worth a mention. The study was called ‘Effect of a fleecy woollen underlay on sleep‘ and was published by Dickson in 1984. It found that…‘woollen underlay significantly reduced the observed postural activity’ . In other words, people moved about less when sleeping on wool.
The same study also found that the wool ‘underlay’ ‘favourably influenced subjective estimates of sleep’. So, people sleeping on wool felt like they’d had a better night’s sleep than those sleeping on a different material.
Anyway, let’s move on to the main event.
We’ve picked out six of the best wool mattresses on the market in the UK. We compared value for money, specification, customer reviews and awards. We’ve included some pricey ones from the poshest names in the mattress market as well as some cheap wool mattresses. Prices are for double mattress sizes. Review scores and prices are correct at the time of writing.
1. Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000 Pocket Mattress – medium/firm – £325
Millbrook have some reasonably priced wool mattresses and they come with the added bonus of a 60-night trial. Do check the details as your option is to swap it for another mattress rather than asking for a refund.
Millbrook sell soft, medium and firm wool mattresses. We’ve picked out the 1000 pocket spring model which is towards the cheaper end of their wool mattress range.
1000 pocket springs is adequate for most people. If you’re above average weight then you might want to look at one of their models with a higher spring count. That will give you a bit of extra support.
This model makes our list thanks to a decent specification for the price and glowing reviews of 4.6/5 after about 500 customer reviews. It comes with a 10 year warranty which is well above average for a pocket spring mattress.
In case this is all jargony waffle, you just need to know that there are two main types of spring used in mattresses. Cheap and nasty mattresses use ‘open coil’ springs which wobble around like jelly on a bouncy castle. The better option is a ‘pocket sprung’ mattress which offers more stability and support.
This mattress features ‘layers of springy 100% fleece wool, sourced from Hampshire’ and is double sided which means you can flip it over which should help it last a bit longer.
Is the firmness of this wool mattress right for you?
This wool mattress is more likely to be more suited to people who are average weight or slightly above average weight. That’s because it is medium-firm.
There’s another factor to consider when choosing the firmness of your wool mattress. people who sleep on their backs or fronts need slightly firmer mattresses than people who sleep on their sides.
The idea is that you combine your weight and your sleeping position to figure out what level of firmness you need. It’s a bit of a stab in the dark if you’re buying online. However, you’ve always got the 60 night trial period if it isn’t right for you.
This mattress is also nice and deep (25cm) and comes with a 10 year guarantee. That’s more than you’d expect for the price. Millbrook isn’t a particularly famous mattress brand but it’s certainly a good specification for the money.
For and against – our expert opinion of the Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000
“A definite plus point with this Millbrook mattress is the price. It offers a lot for the money. It is about a third of the price of some rivals, such as the John Lewis & Partners Natural Collection Fleece Wool 8400 Mattress”
“A double layered mattress like this one should last well. The wool layers will help maintain your temperature thanks to its hygroscopic qualities”
”The long warranty and trial period is a definite plus point. You don’t get that with the similarly priced Happy Beds Signature 2000 Pocket. One drawback is that the spring count is quite low, which won’t suit heavier people”
2. Sleepeezee Wool Supreme 2400 Pocket Mattress – medium tension – £669
Sleepeezee is a highly rated and award-winning mattress brand, but it isn’t as expensive as you might imagine. They sell a number of wool mattresses including the medium firmness Sleepeezee Wool Supreme 2400 Pocket Mattress. There are also some cheaper Sleepeezee wool mattresses.
The Sleepeezee brand has a Royal Warrant (meaning they supply a Royal Household) and it scores an outstanding customer review score of 4.3/5 on TrustPilot.
This particular model scores very highly with 4.7/5 albeit from only a small number of reviews.
It has ‘a double layer of 100% British wool’ which sits on top of two layers of pocket springs. This mattress is what’s known as a pillow top. That means it has a topper which is permanently fixed to one side of the mattress for extra comfort.
You can’t turn this mattress over unfortunately. Instead, you just spin it round regularly to reduce sags and dips over time.
The 2400 figure relates to the number of springs, which are spread over two layers. From the diagram it looks as though there are 1200 springs on each layer, but it’s not entirely clear.
The usual range on a good quality mattress is between 1000 and 2000 springs. If you’re very heavy you’ll get more support from a number at the top of that range. However, for most people a figure of 1200 springs would provide plenty of support. Of course, with two layers of springs you’ll feel well supported.
For and against – our expert opinion of the Sleepeezee Wool Supreme 2400
“This Sleepeezee mattress has a terrific specification considering it is very much a mid-priced purchase. You get the prestige of buying a mattress with a Royal Warrant without paying the prices you might for a Hypnos mattress (which also have Royal Warrants).
Another plus point is that you get two layers of springs, which add extra comfort and support.
However, because it’s a pillowtop wool mattress, you can’t turn it over which I see as a downside. The warranty length is also half that of the Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000. That’s despite the Sleepeezee mattress being the more expensive model.”
3. John Lewis & Partners British Natural Collection Herdwick 11000 Mattress – medium or firm – £2099
The John Lewis Natural Collection of mattresses is made by a Yorkshire-based company called Harrison Spinks. They won the best manufacturer award at the National Bed Federation Awards in 2018. That’s the main industry awards for those of you who don’t keep up with mattress news.
Even more thrillingly, the spring used in this mattress won an award in 2019. It gave a great speech about how it had bounced back after a tricky few years.
Harrison Spinks is also one of the only mattress brands with a Manufacturing Guild Mark. That’s another sign of British-made quality.
There are several mattresses in the Natural Collection range which use wool. They range in price from about £750 – £3000 for a double mattress.
We’ve picked out the 11000 model which ticks every box that I look for in a pocket sprung mattress. It uses eight different layers of British wool, blended with other materials (four on each side). According to the blurb it uses ‘traceable British Wool’ and is made in Yorkshire.
What’s going on with the huge spring count?
Don’t get too obsessed with finding a mattress with thousands of springs. There’s a limit to how many you can fit onto one layer of a mattress. Most of the heavy lifting is done by a layer of larger pocket springs. The four layers of mini springs provide a bit of extra comfort but they are sandwiched between large springs and four layers of wool.
Other good signs are that this mattress can be turned over. That should help prolong its life, as long as you have the strength to lift it. This double-sided design is the major advantage it has over the cheaper mattresses in the range.
It also has something called Hand Side Stitching which just means that it has been well-built with plenty of strength at the edges.
It comes with a 7 year guarantee which is pretty good for a pocket sprung mattress but not as long as many foam mattresses. ‘Bed in a box’ brands like Emma, Simba and Eve Sleep come with a 10 year guarantee whilst Nectar Sleep and DreamCloud come with a ‘forever’ guarantee.
This mattress is available in medium tension or firm tension. According to John Lewis’ mattress buying guide, their medium tension mattresses are ‘Suitable for bodyweights of 8-16 stone (50kg-100kg)’. Their firm mattresses offer ‘Optimum comfort for bodyweights over 16 stone (100kg+)’.
One other factor to throw into the mix (just to confuse you further) is that people who sleep on their front or back need slightly firmer mattresses than people who sleep on their sides. That might help sway you if you’re on the borderline between those bodyweights.
Innovative sustainability in the 11000 mattress
We’ve been banging on for a long time about the mattress industry’s poor record on recycling. Only about 24% of mattress materials are recycled in the UK (that’s from the End of Life Mattress Report by the National Bed Federation, which was published in 2022). The good news is that it was 19% in 2019, so we are moving in the right direction.
Part of the problem is that consumers have switched from ‘open coil’ mattresses to ‘pocket sprung’ mattresses. This is hardly surprising as pocket sprung mattresses are more supportive than open coil mattresses. The issue is that pocket spring mattresses are harder to recycle, as they contain hundreds or thousands of small springs, each encased in tiny pockets. Extracting them for recycling is expensive and time consuming. Meanwhile, an open coil mattress is made from one long piece of metal which is wound and shaped into a series of springs.
The 11000 mattress has been designed to overcome this problem by using heat rather than glue to seal the springs into their pockets. According to the description: ‘Not only does this mean the springs can work individually for maximum efficiency, it also means each spring can be disassembled and reinvented in the future’.
For and against – our expert opinion of the John Lewis & Partners Natural Collection Fleece Wool 8750 Mattress
“You know you’re getting quality with the John Lewis & Partners brand and the Harrison Spinks reputation within the mattress industry. There are several things in the pros column for this mattress. For example, it can be turned over and it uses manufacturing methods which are established as the best in the business. I like the fact that you can choose medium or firm tensions. Clear guidance is given so you aren’t left guessing which is right for you.”
“The sustainable design and the offer to recycle it after seven years is also appealing (although it does make it a rather pricey mattress per night’s usage)”
“The massive spring count grabs your attention but don’t forget that there’s a difference between full size pocket springs and mini springs. The John Lewis & Partners comfort trial is another plus point, albeit with a few caveats.”
“The question is whether it is worth the money. It costs about three times as much as the Sleepeezee Wool Supreme 2400 Pocket Mattress or about six times as much as the Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000 Pocket Mattress.”
“It actually has a shorter warranty period than the Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000 Pocket Mattress. That is definitely one for the cons column. It’s 29cm deep, which is a pretty substantial size for a mattress”
4. Simba Source Mattress – medium/firm – £1499
Simba gained its popularity thanks to its ‘hybrid’ mattresses, which use memory foam and springs. However, they have more recently moved into the natural mattress market with three Earth models which use wool.
We think they are worth serious consideration as you still get Simba’s 200 night home trial period and 10 year warranty. Simba’s trial is one of the best on the market, as you get a refund and can use it out of its packaging. Some other mattress companies only offer a swap if you don’t like a mattress. Of course, it’s always worth reading the smallprint, but there are less holes to fall into with Simba than with some brands.
The downside with one of these wool mattresses is that you can’t try them in the shops, but there’s a very good argument that you should really try sleeping on a bed for a few nights rather than making a snap decision in a shop.
Sounds great, but what’s the mattress like?
Good point, let’s get on with talking about this mattress.
It is the cheapest of Simba’s three Earth models. The more expensive models have extra layers of wool but there is an element of diminishing returns here – the biggest benefits can be found in all three models.
The first layer underneath the cover is British wool and then you get hemp and flax from Yorkshire on the next layers.
The support comes from a layer of large pocket springs and there’s also a layer of smaller springs. The latter are more about comfort, whilst the former does most of the work.
The mattress is 25cm deep, which is slap bang in the middle of what I would expect from a quality pocket sprung mattress. It is single sided, which is a bit of shame but is very common when you have a mattress like this with multiple layers (to make it double sided you would need the same four layers of wool, flax, hemp and mini springs on the bottom of the mattress).
For and against – our expert opinion of the Simba Earth Source Mattress
“For a long time we didn’t associate Simba with natural materials such as wool, flax and hemp. Their mattresses didn’t use traditional manufacturing techniques and instead focused on newer manmade foam, which was tweaked to perform well.
They’ve now gone full circle and whilst they still produce those popular Hybrid mattresses, they have acknowledged that natural materials are what some customers want.
The side benefit for mattress shoppers is that Simba decided to apply their generous and ‘disruptive’ policy of letting you try a mattress for months at home before deciding if you want to keep it. Twenty years ago, a mattress salesperson would have laughed you out of the shop if you suggested they give you a trial period like this for a pocket sprung mattress.
These mattresses also claim to be easier to recycle than mattresses using manmade materials. Environmental credentials of a mattress are complex, but these are glue and foam free which certainly makes recycling easier”
5. Herdy Sleep Wool Mattress – medium/firm – £1199
The Herdy Sleep sales pitch says that it uses ‘one full Herdwick fleece’ in each mattress and that by buying it you’re keeping a traditional trade going. They’re the sheep with curly horns which live in the Lake District.
But is it any good as a mattress?
As with the John Lewis 11000 mattress, it’s made by award-winners Harrison Spinks and has a similarly massive spring count (7000). Again, it’s worth realising that the figure includes a layer of normal size springs and two layers of mini ‘comfort’ springs. Anyway, you’ll get plenty of support with it.
One big difference is that you can’t turn this mattress over. This is because the layer of ‘Herdwick wool, cotton and cashmere’ is only on the top layer. Instead, you rotate it round to avoid getting dips and sags. Some guides I’ve read suggest that mattresses which can be flipped tend to last longer. However, I’ve not seen any detailed study with multi-coloured graphs and pie charts to back that up.
On the plus side, it comes with a 10 year guarantee which is a long time for a pocket spring mattress.
Perhaps most impressively, it comes with a 100-night trial period (check the Ts and Cs). Such things are now quite common with memory foam mattresses but they’re less common with pocket sprung mattresses. You can also try them out at about 10 different stores around the UK. However, that doesn’t really compare to being able to sleep on it for a few weeks before deciding if you want to keep it.
For and against – our expert opinion of the Herdy Sleep Wool Mattress
“The Herdy Sleep Mattress ticks a lot of boxes – but there are a couple of negatives compared to its rivals.”
“Top of the pros column is the trial period. It is longer than that offered by the John Lewis & Partners Natural Collection Fleece Wool 8750 Mattress or the Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000. The guarantee also trumps the more expensive John Lewis & Partners Natural Collection Fleece Wool 8750 Mattress and the somewhat cheaper Sleepeezee Wool Supreme 2400 Pocket Mattress.”
“I also like the company’s willingness to say where the wool has come from. Mattress brands often use a mix of wools from different places, but this approach gives an assurance of quality.”
“The spring count is not far off from the John Lewis & Partners Natural Collection Fleece Wool 11000 Mattress. However, numbers aren’t everything when it comes to mattress springs.”
“A negative with the Herdy Sleep Mattress is that you can’t turn it over. The Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000 Pocket Mattress is double sided and less than a third of the price. It’s also a bit limited in the sizes available. It won’t be any good for you if you have a small double or small single bed”
6. Happy Beds Signature 2000 Pocket Sprung Pillow Top Natural Fillings Mattress – medium/firm – £325
Happy Beds is a budget mattress brand but it’s a good choice if you want a cheap wool mattress which doesn’t look cheap. The descriptions don’t quite go into as much gushing detail about where the sheep are from or what proportion of the mattress is wool. Instead, this Signature 2000 model says that it is ‘filled with a wealth of wool, cotton and cashmere’.
It’s another pillow top mattress. That means it has a topper which is permanently fixed to the mattress for comfort.
It’s got a very high pocket spring count, meaning that it will provide plenty of support even if you are heavier than average. It’s also massively thick at 33cm, which is more than some mattresses which cost five times as much.
Unfortunately you can’t turn this one over, but you rotate it round to prolong its life. It’s made in the UK and has a five year guarantee.
Overall, Happy Beds scores 4.4/5 on TrustPilot.
For and against – our expert opinion of the Happy Beds Signature 2000
“Happy Beds isn’t a famous or prestigious name in the mattress market. However, the Signature 2000 has a much higher spring count than the similarly priced Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000 Pocket Mattress. That means it is particularly suited for heavier people”
“The warranty length matches the Sleepeezee Wool Supreme 2400 but isn’t as good as the 10 years offered with the Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000 Pocket Mattress.”
“The main downside for me with the Signature 2000 is that there’s no trial period and you only buy it online. If you don’t find it comfortable then you are stuck with it”
Side by side: how do our top 5 wool mattresses compare?
| What’s it called? | How much is it? | Warranty and trial | How firm is it? | Depth | Sizes |
| Millbrook Wool Luxury 1000 Pocket Mattress | £325 | 10 years, 60 night trial | Medium/firm | 25cm | Small Single, Single, Small Double, Double, King, Super King |
| Sleepeezee Wool Supreme 2400 | £665 | 5 years | Medium | 27cm | Single, Small Double, Double, King, Super King |
| John Lewis & Partners British Natural Collection Herdwick 11000 Mattress | £2099 | 7 years, 60 night comfort trial | Medium or firm | 29cm | Single, Small Double, Double, King, Super King |
| Simba Sleep Earth Source Mattress | £1499 | 10 years, 200 night trial | Medium/firm | 25cm | Single, Double, King, Super King |
| Herdy Sleep Wool Mattress | £1199 | 10 years, 100 night trial | Medium/firm | 26cm | Single, Double, King, Super King |
| Happy Beds Signature 2000 | £325 | 5 years, no trial | Medium/firm | 33cm | Small Single, Single, Small Double, Double, King, Super King |
The science behind sleep: is wool a good material for sleeping?
There has been an academic study carried out into the performance of wool as a material for sleepwear and bedding.
The topic was examined in 2016, with the support of an organisation called Australian Wool Innovation Ltd. If you want to have a read, the paper is called ‘The effects of fabric for sleepwear and bedding on sleep at ambient temperatures of 17°C and 22°C’ by Shin, Halaki et al.
First, they tested out merino wool sleepwear along cotton sleepwear. They are both natural materials with strong reputations for breathability but they want to see which performed best.
In the study, those wearing the merino wool sleepwear fell asleep quicker and they also slept a bit better and for longer. The first of those three points was noted as being most noticeable with the second two points being subtler (‘Sleeping in wool sleepwear produced a significantly shorter Sleep Onset Latency than cotton’ and ‘Marginally significant results were observed for an increased Total Sleep Time and Sleep Efficiency when sleeping in wool compared to cotton sleepwear’.
The second part of the study examined polyester bedding alongside wool bedding. This isn’t quite the same as examining how a wool topper performs, but it’s still worth a mention.
In this case, the researchers didn’t find notable differences between the sleep experienced by those taking part in the study. They concluded that ‘there was no bedding effect on sleep’ and ‘no main effects were observed for bedding types’.
However, researchers did reference another study by Ha, Tokura et al which concluded that ‘when comparing cotton to polyester fabric at a body temperature of 37°C and 60% relative humidity, a higher sweating rate was observed with polyester, since polyester is less hygroscopic than cotton’.