Are 13,750 springs too many in this luxury mattress?

The Southdown mattress by Button & Sprung has dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s when it comes to making a top quality sleeping surface. These guys go the extra mile and do more at every opportunity. This hand-made, natural, single sided mattress with its 10 year guarantee offers pure luxury, backed by everyone who’s tried it and bothered to write a review, me included.

There aren’t many things in your life you use on a daily basis for at least 10 years before replacing it. In fact I can’t think of anything other than a mattress. Saying that I do have a tea towel I made in primary school that still hangs on my oven door to this day, and will never be replaced. That is why my ongoing hunt to find and test the best mattresses the market has to offer is of vital importance. Button & Sprung you have my attention, I was doubtful at first, but please now consider me a believer. 

It’s fair to say that I am one of a growing army of people who recognise that Button & Sprung have hit the nail on the head with the Southdown. When you read the opinions of others and they say things like “it is HEAVEN” and “Like the best hotel bed you’ve ever slept on” you must be starting to get curious as to what the hype is all about. Well mute that Teams meeting you’re supposed to be in and read on as we dive into all things springs.

Specifications

Opening note

Unfortunately, there is not a worldwide governing body of mattress manufacturers. If there was, the firmness would be standardised and your life would be a lot easier. Instead of guessing whether the medium firm from John Lewis will be the same as your new regular from Button & Sprung you would be able to buy without hesitation. 

Alas, the worldwide governing body of mattress manufacturers does not exist. This is why I place such importance on sleep promises, or simply put, your return options. With Button & Sprung you have 100 days to make your mind up. It seems unlikely that it will take that long to figure out if it suits you but the option is there, so that’s great. It’s no quibbles and they will come and swap it for a replacement of your choice.

Crucially, as part of this, I want to make you aware of when the returns policy doesn’t apply in an unexpected place. The whole appeal for the Zip & Link systems for me is the fact that you and the person you share a bed with can have different firmnesses. I really thought this was why Zip & Link was invented. With Button & Sprung the different firmnesses constitute a bespoke product and therefore cannot be returned. I don’t really understand why this is, but proceed with caution if you were planning on going down this road. 

Comfort levels

Kicking things off with the most important criteria - comfort. If you’re new to mattress hunting and unsure whether you should be looking at soft, medium or firm I’ll point you in the right direction. Nearly ¾ of sleepers opt for medium. Generally, it is suggested that you should only consider soft or firm if you are lighter or heavier than the typical. The end result being everyone ends up with a similar balance of sink to support. There is always the consideration of front vs back vs side sleeping positions. Surprise, surprise, the headline here from sleep experts is, once again, you’ll be in the medium territory regardless of what type of sleeper you are.

Based on all of this, it shouldn’t come as such a curve ball to learn that Button & Sprung only offer two levels of firmness - Regular which is medium and Firmer which is medium-firm. They have chosen to cater to the masses which I get, but I can’t help but think they have lost everyone who would have gone for a soft or firm. “Buy a topper” I hear you say. The truth is, if I’m spending nearly £2,000 on a mattress I don’t really think I should have to buy one. In my opinion, a topper is to compensate for a gap between a Zip & Link system, remedy a lower quality mattress, or to give you some extra warmth in the Winter. 

As it happens I am a typical weight at a solid 75 kg, and was sent the Regular for my tests. Despite my grumble about the lack of choice of firmness, any negativity becomes a distant memory the moment you lie down. The Southdown really is the kind of mattress you would find in a top-quality luxury hotel. The kind of mattress that balances support and sink in the same way that Italians balance work and life, perfectly. I can say for certain that a mattress topper is not necessary. In this case, the Regular is medium firmness, not like those mediums that are too soft or too hard. 

Support and firmness

I imagine from the title you already know what type of mattress this is. I’ll remind you of the question I asked - “Are 13,750 springs too many in this luxury mattress?”. I followed up to answer my own question with, “No.” The Southdown leaves you in no doubt that it is pocket-sprung with 4 layers of internal springs made up of 750 Core pocket springs, two layers of 4,000 high-density micro pocket springs and then a layer of 5,000 high-density micro pocket springs. So if you’re wondering what happened to the slinky you had as a child, look no further than Button & Sprung’s mattress factory.

Needless to say the support is edge to edge. There is none of this sinking as you reach over to get your phone from the bedside table that you sometimes get on cheaper mattresses. Nor is there noticeable movement from anyone else you might have in your bed with you. The motion isolation is top-notch. This absolutely must be down to the number of springs. I currently have a feeble 4,000 in mine and the motion isolation is not as good as with the Southdown. 

Another useful tip for you - most people are side sleepers. I count myself among this group and therefore need the right level of support to avoid waking up feeling like my back is double my age. The Southdown delivers and leaves me with a back double my shoe size. The support is superb. I have had a lower back problem recently and know how much worse a bad mattress could make it. This one felt good. I, along with many other customers, am more than impressed. Redirect the money you're spending on a physio into a good mattress and treat the cause instead of the symptoms.

Scent

If this isn’t your first rodeo, or your first time buying a mattress, you’ll know all about off-gassing. A term I am not a fan of, but something you should be taking seriously. The UK has very strict fire safety standards that all mattresses have to live up to before being able to be sold to the public. The result of these high standards is a wave of mattresses coated in chemicals most of which are restricted or banned in other countries or on a list to state they may cause cancer. So whilst your mattress may not catch fire, it could pose some other very serious health risks. Truly bizarre when wool is naturally fire retardant. Sadly many consumers just want something cheap and avoid thinking about the trade-off. 

You’ll be pleased, and probably unsurprised, to learn that Button & Sprung don’t use foam, glue or fire retardant chemicals in their mattresses. In fact there was actually no smell at all. I have an air purifier in my bedroom that I have seen in the red zone when testing memory foam toppers, but nothing nasty to report here. 

Temperature regulation

Something I want to talk about here is Button & Sprung’s double sided mattresses. The Southdown is single sided, meaning you should not flip it, but rather, rotate it. You may notice on their website that there are other more expensive mattresses, making you think I’ve made a mistake when I say the Southbound is the flagship model. Well anything beyond the Southbound falls into the double sided category. To put it simply, you have a side for summer and a side for winter. This is a really nice touch if money is no object. You’re essentially buying two mattresses though. 

Truth be told, I don't think you need a side for each season. In my opinion, apart from deep memory foam mattresses, which I would avoid anyway, your duvet and room temperature have more to answer for here. I get hot when I sleep, probably more so than most people. But with the Regular I found no problems. As a side note I am testing in early October, it is still around 10 - 20 degrees. Maybe I would be suffering more if it was summer. 

The truth is, you should pick the mattress based on the comfort and support, if you find you are sleeping hot there are alternative solutions. Don’t pick a firm mattress that you find uncomfortable just so you are cool. That is why fans exist.

Guarentee and durability

So I know that a lot of memory foam mattresses get delivered vacuum packed as a roll these days. I did not, however, know that this was possible with pocket sprung mattresses. The Southdown arrived wrapped in polythene, with the entire mattress as a giant flat rectangle. All you have to do is pierce the packaging and boom, your mattress seemingly inflates in front of you. The days of squeezing the thing around the corner on your staircase are long gone. 

Button & Sprung use their own in house delivery team getting the mattress from factory to you within 4 to 6 weeks of ordering. You simply choose a 2 hour window to suit you, and they’ll be there. The delivery is free within a 65-mile radius of the London showroom, the rest of the UK ranges from £50 to £100. The team will literally set up the mattress on your bed of choice and take away all of the packaging. If you are doing a return or exchange, you will once again pay the delivery fee.

A really nice touch is Button & Sprung will take away your old mattress absolutely free. The only catch is it has to be pocket sprung. The nice thing about this service is that they will reuse 95% of what they take away. More on this later. 

The Southdown comes with a 10 year guarantee covering the materials, construction and workmanship. The only thing you wouldn’t be covered for is natural wear and tear or damage from unusual use. 

All mattresses will survive 10 years and beyond if properly cared for. And let’s be honest, a mattress isn’t exactly a house plant that dies whether you give it water or not. They’re pretty low maintenance. Rotate ‘em every 3 months and that’s it. After the 10 year mark it is recommended by Sleep Foundation that you change them anyway. 

Something I don’t see all the time, but is present on the Southdown is 2 handles on every side. This is just another example of Button & Sprung going the extra mile, doing something that isn’t necessary, but actually makes a difference, and makes sense. 

Environmental credentials

Let’s start with a scary fact. Over 7 million mattresses end up in landfill every year. In the UK alone. Most of these end up in landfill and take 1,000’s of years to biodegrade. The memory foam trend has a lot to answer for. 

Button & Sprung created Second Sleep as a project to recycle old pocket sprung mattresses 100% free. It doesn’t matter where it was bought, all that is important is there is a label identifying it as pocket sprung, it contains some natural fillings, and doesn’t contain memory foam. 

The end game is to create a fully circular economy within the next five years, which sounds ambitious to me, but admirable. They state at least 95% of each mattress will be repurposed with the natural fillings going through a sanitation process to ensure they are completely hygienic and perfectly safe for re-use. The springs are melted down to be made into new metal components.  

Something I am not so convinced by is the packaging. I scoured the website for any hint that the plastic that the mattress is delivered in is recycled or plant based, sadly I can’t find anything, so I fear the worst. With an in house delivery team it would be easy to use a similar system to Naturalmat who have reusable mattress bags and have saved tonnes of plastic waste. Do we really need them to be vacuum packed? It feels like a waste of energy, time, money and causes unnecessary damage to the environment through the materials required for this process. 

Value

With the Southdown you are paying top whack. But you are getting an incredibly luxury mattress with a ludicrous amount of springs. I don’t actually think it is bad value at all. It’s expensive without a doubt, but you can quickly account for a lot of the cost when you start tallying things up.

Is it worth £600 more than the most recent mattress I reviewed from Naturalmat? I’m not sure about that. But is it worth £700 more than my personal mattress from John Lewis? Yes. The moral of the story seems to be, pick a company that specialises in what they do. Button & Sprung are mattress pros, they care, and it shows. 

How we test

Why can I speak objectively about mattresses? You may be wondering. Well, as I write, I have 4 of them in my house that I am testing. This doesn’t include all the others I have tested before, and all that are to come next. When you start testing mattresses you realise that the words “I slept like a log” are not the result of chance, the calming podcast you listened to, or the cheese board you didn’t eat, but the bed you lay on.

Given that mattresses are neither seen nor heard (usually), you’ve probably never really broken down what separates a good mattress from a great mattress. Well I’m here to tell you the criteria and set you off on your journey as a newly qualified siesta scientist.

The top two most important factors I consider are comfort & support. These are closely followed by the type of mattress and the smell (yes you read correctly). Then we have delivery, temperature regulation, warranty/durability, earth friendliness and value. These last five don’t impact your sleep unless you really overpay and lie awake at night worrying. I also place lower significance on temperature regulation because in my opinion a duvet and your boiler system have a bigger part to play here. Of course a deep memory foam is going to be warmer than a firm pocket sprung, but you get my point.