Wander down the soft end of most bed shops and nearly everything you lie on is memory foam, built one way up and meant to stay that way. If you want soft without memory foam, and a mattress you can turn over, the Dream Team Bakewell 2000 Pocket Wool Mattress is the bed at Dreams I'd send you to. It comes from Dream Team, the shop's own range, made in its UK factory, and it's the softest of the Dream Team wool beds: graded Soft, the first step on Dreams' seven-step scale. It's built identically top and bottom: one layer of pocket springs in the middle, with a stack of polyester, a springy sheet Dreams calls Platinum 3D and British wool on each side. The wool meets you first, then the springs gather under your hip, so it's soft with some bounce left in it. Its plainer sibling, the Dream Team Brookfield 800 Pocket Wool Mattress, has the same turn-it-over wool idea sold in Medium and on a much smaller spring unit, so when soft is the point, this is the one to lie on.
Anyone who has slept on a Dreams Ashbourne already knows this bed. Dreams has given it a new name and a new product code, and the build it publishes matches the old one layer for layer, with the same 1,683 pocket springs in a double, the same 25cm (10 inch) depth and the same weight. What moved is the ticket, and it climbed a long way with the new name. I rated this build as a great buy before and I still rate it. At the new price, though, it's a good bed asking too much, so wait for Dreams to put it in a sale.
Side sleepers are the people it suits best, along with anyone light enough that most mattresses push back too hard, which is the same pair Dreams has it pegged for. Couples get on with it too, because the springs are wrapped one at a time and move on their own. One pair who bought it under the old name said the springs "mean that we are not disturbed by the other moving during the night". Back sleepers need something firmer to keep their hips level, and so does anyone heavy enough to sink straight through a soft bed. Past about eighteen stone I'd send you to a firmer grade without a second thought.
The softness comes from wool on both faces, with no memory foam in the build
Most soft mattresses get their give from foam. This one gets it from wool, laid directly under the cover on each face, with the Platinum 3D sheet and a polyester pad beneath it before you reach the springs. Press a palm in and the top gives easily and comes straight back, with none of the slow, warm sink that memory foam has. On your side, your shoulder settles into those top layers while the pocket springs take the weight of your hip, so you're cradled without the hammock feeling of a bed that lets your middle drop.
Wool and springs sleep cooler than foam, to my mind, which is the other reason I'd steer a warm sleeper this way. It won't cool a hot room for you, and owners of the earlier version split on it. One found it "far too hot" in summer. The couple quoted above, who had been wary of soft beds before this one, wrote that "even on the hottest nights, we stay comfortable".
Sold as Soft, the Bakewell turns up firmer than the shop bed
Expect it firmer on the day it arrives than the one you lay on in the showroom. It's the complaint that came up most among people who bought it under its old name. One found the delivered bed "nowhere near as soft as the showrooms mattress", and another, who had been looking forward to a soft bed, found it "much firmer than I expected". None of that surprises me. The showroom bed has had every passing shopper on it and its wool has packed down, and yours starts plump and settles as you sleep on it.
Give it a month, turn it the way Dreams asks, and judge it after that. A few owners found it still too firm long after the first weeks, so if that's you, use the 100-Night Comfort Guarantee to change it for something softer, and put a mattress protector on it from the first night, because the guarantee only counts if you have.
What owners of the earlier version liked, and the dips some of them found
The happy owners keep coming back to the same pairing, soft and supportive, and a good number of them arrived from a firm bed that had been hurting them. One who switched "from a firm mattress to a soft one due to hip pain" called it "So comfortable and not too soft". Another kept one in a spare room and wrote that "It is definitely soft but still supportive", which is as neat a summary of the bed as I could give you.
Read the unhappy reviews before the glowing ones, though, because that's where the dipping shows up. One owner who turned a king "every Friday" still found "dips both sides" in time, and another felt it "gets harder as it flattens" over a few months. A lighter owner summed up who it is for: "I think it would probably dip if you're heavier though". Wool packs down where you lie, so I'd keep heavier sleepers off it and keep everyone else turning it. On a king, one owner also found the "Support at the edges of mattress isn't great". If you perch on the edge to pull your shoes on, try exactly that on a Bakewell before you buy one.
Two sleeping faces, so plan on a weekly flip to begin with
Being able to turn it is the best thing about this bed, and the turning is the chore that comes with it. Dreams wants it flipped and spun end to end every week to begin with, easing off to once a month after the first three months. A double weighs 36kg, so it's a job for two people and a clear floor. Do it anyway. Turning shares the wear across both faces, and on a soft wool bed that's what stops your shape setting into one side.
Check your fitted sheets before delivery day too. At that depth one owner found that "our standard fitted sheets don't really fit completely over the mattress", while another's "sheets fitted so did not need to buy new deep ones". Measure the pockets on yours, because a sheet that pings off the corner every night will annoy you long before the mattress does.
Nothing changed but the name and the ticket, so wait for a sale
Nothing about the build changed with the name, so my view of the bed hasn't changed either. At its old price I called it a great buy: the soft bed at Dreams you can turn, with two and a half times the Brookfield's springs in a double. At the new one it's the same mattress asking a good deal more of you, for exactly the bed you could have bought before the name changed. Dream Team prices swing a lot through the year, and the old version moved a long way between its sale price and its full one, so put this on your list and buy it when Dreams cuts it. The guarantee is short, as it is right across the Dream Team range, which is one more reason to buy at the low end of that swing.
What to buy instead
Buy the Bakewell itself, in a sale: for a soft bed you can turn, it's still the one I'd pick at Dreams. If you need a mattress before the price comes down and a step firmer would suit you, the Dream Team Brookfield 800 Pocket Wool Mattress gives you wool on both faces and the same turning, on a smaller spring unit graded Medium. Back sleepers should go the other way, to the Dream Team Frome 4200 Pocket Wool Mattress. It's graded Firm, with wool on both faces, and it turns over like this one. On your back it keeps your hips level in a way a Soft grade can't.
