- Available in double, king and super king sizes
- Medium soft level of firmness
- 4,950 pocket springs
- 5-year guarantee (although no trial period)
Tested at home by Leon Poultney
Slice open this beautiful, hand-made mattress from British luxury bedmaker Harrison Spinks and you’ll find a staggering 4,950 individual springs that have been painstakingly sewn into individual pockets for fantastic pressure relief and weight distribution.
Granted, cutting open this collaboration between two British icons would be a crying shame, because the build quality is fantastic, with Harrison Spinks incorporating British and Yorkshire wool and rejecting glues, foams and other nasty chemicals. The company has been making mattresses since 1840.
The double mattress I tested was delivered by a team of two burly blokes who wrestled it up the stairs and wrangled it into position (taking away my old mattress to recycle). There are four handles on the double, so it’s possible for two people to rotate. Thankfully, it doesn’t require flipping, because it is very weighty.
On the other hand, at 27cm deep, this has a much slimmer profile than some other mattresses we have tested (hybrids can be particularly chunky), which is good if you don’t want a huge slab of mattress rising above your stylish bed frame.
I’m a firm mattress fan and I was deeply impressed with the support and even weight distribution the Heritage 5500 offered on a nightly basis. Despite its pocket-sprung nature, there was no flex in the middle and it remained supportive all the way to the outer edges – likely down to the 4,950 springs at play here.
As a side sleeper, this vast array of springs ensured there were no nasty pressure points building up during the night – something I’ve managed to achieve with memory foam mattresses, but rarely with a pocket-sprung unit like this. That’s testament to the build quality.
Alas, the main issue I find with pocket-sprung mattresses is that you can feel the recesses in the comfort layer, and this model has fairly pronounced alcoves. Memory foam and hybrid models tend to offer a much smoother top surface.
Harrison Spinks says it plumps for local wool thanks to its natural antibacterial and temperature-regulating properties, even going so far as to farm its own sheep, hemp and flax to create fillings and linen for the outers. In terms of sustainability, it’s hard to beat and these natural materials also seem to do a sterling job in regulating temperature. It remained cool to the touch in the morning, even on those nights where the central heating blared.
The only downside is that for the first few days you can smell the earthy aromas of natural wool, hemp and flax. It didn’t bother me, but my son and wife wouldn’t stop mentioning it until it died down after a couple of weeks.
In terms of price, the Heritage 5500 sits somewhere between ‘eye-wateringly expensive’ and good value, since the price reflects the hand-craftsmanship and sustainable material.
