If you're after a plain pocket-sprung bed from Dreams that you can turn over and sleep on every night, without paying for wool or memory foam, the Dream Team Whitby 800 is built for exactly that. It's the plainest of the 800 family in Dream Team, Dreams' own range. Its two near neighbours share its springs: the Brookfield 800 adds British wool to both faces, and the Tadley 800 gets a memory foam top and loses the turn. The Whitby keeps to polyester under a soft damask cover, top and bottom. You lie on it, not in it, with the springs close under you.
Back when Dreams called it the Burford 800, I lay on this bed in one of its stores in October, and the build Dreams now publishes for the Whitby matches it: the same springs size for size, the same five layers, the same 22cm. I'm 61 kg, and on my side it was supportive and comfortable enough, good going for the money. Lying on my back was much the same, and lying on my front pleased me least. It isn't a great mattress, but it did the best it could at its price. The catch is that Dreams has put the price up with the name.
Students, renters and anyone furnishing a first flat on very little are who I'd buy it for, as long as they want a bed for every night and they catch it in a sale. It suits back and side sleepers of middling weight who like a springy, on-top feel. Front sleepers should look elsewhere, and so should anyone who loves the way memory foam moulds round them, because the Whitby has no foam of any kind.
Polyester, damask and pocket springs make up the whole Whitby
Take the Whitby apart in your head and you find three materials. A soft-touch damask cover, a layer of polyester, the pocket springs, then the polyester and the damask again in reverse, with tufts pulled right through to pin the filling down. No foam, no wool, no cotton. Lie on your back and the springs take your weight almost at once, the polyester smoothing over the coils more than cushioning you. Roll onto your side and you stay on the surface rather than sinking in, which held me well enough at 61 kg and leaves nothing for anyone who wants to sink into a bed.
Basic fillings over a proper spring unit is a trade I'll take on a budget bed every time. I rate Dream Team beds when there are pockets inside, and here there are. With no foam in it, nothing holds your heat the way a memory foam top does, and the coils leave room for air to move.
Dreams calls it handmade in the UK, and the tufts are the bit of craft you can see for yourself, holding the polyester in place on both faces. I'd still judge it on those three materials. Plenty of people who bought it under the old name got it for a child or a teenager, and pocket springs are what I'd want a child sleeping on every night. One parent found that "the button holes are quite deep & so little feet/heels fall into them".
Both faces are built alike, so it turns over as well as round, which spreads the wear. On a bed this plain, that turn is the best thing going for it. Dreams asks you to flip it and swing it end to end each week while it's new, then once a month when three months are up. The single is 18kg and the double 26kg, light enough that one owner wrote, "It is quite light so makes turning and flipping easy." The super king is 40kg, so that one is a two-person flip.
Are 800 pocket springs enough for a nightly bed?
For a budget bed, yes, once you know that 800 is the king's figure rounded down. The king carries 806 springs and the super king 930, while the double has 667 and the single 435, so check the count for your size before you compare it with another mattress.
A double with 1,000 pocket springs is already on the light side to me, and this one has 667. Every one of them is a full-height pocket spring in a single layer, though, and none of them is a mini spring. Each spring moves on its own, so a partner rolling over shifts their half more than yours. That's why I'd always take pockets over a wired open coil at the bottom end of the shop.
Lighter bodies sit on top of it, heavier ones get the firm side of Medium
Dreams grades it Medium, the third of its seven steps, counting up from Soft, and when its owners disagree with that, they mostly say it's harder. "Really it is not soft medium, its hard," one wrote. Another praised it as "great value for money" and still ruled it out for themselves, because it's "graded as medium, but feels like a firm to very firm." A smaller group found it too soft, which is what you get when one grade is sold to every shape of sleeper.
Read it by weight first, then position. A light couple liked that it was "firm enough not to allow our light body weight to sink into the mattress", and that tells you how it treats a small frame: you stay on the surface. That suits a light back sleeper well, and it held me well enough on my side at 61 kg, but a light side sleeper who wants to sink in won't get that here. Put a heavier back sleeper on it and the same springs give the firm-leaning Medium that most of them want.
The price was the reason to buy it, and Dreams has raised it
Money comes up again and again in what those owners wrote. "Not luxury quality, but for the money I really can't complain," said one. Another summed up the case in a review title, "Good value if discounted", and someone else called it "cheap and cheerful", meaning it kindly. What they were buying was pocket springs and two usable sides for very little.
That's the bed I lay on, and it's the bed Dreams now sells as the Whitby, at a higher ticket than it carried under its old name. Nothing in the build has gone up to match. So my verdict from the shop floor stands, with one condition attached. It's decent and basic, supportive enough, with real pocket springs and two faces to share the wear, and I'd buy it in a Dreams sale and walk past it at full price.
Dream Team prices move about through the year, so keep an eye on this one and pounce when it drops. If you need a bed now and it's at full price, go to the Fowey 1000 below, the step up.
What to buy instead
Look at the Dream Team Tadley 800 first. It's the budget Dream Team I'd buy myself: the same springs with real memory foam on top, and kind to a side sleeper. When I lay on it the foam held some warmth after a while, and it doesn't turn, so you trade the flip for a softer top. Like the Whitby, it's one to buy at a sale price and not at the ticket.
If two sides matter most, the Dream Team Brookfield 800 keeps the Whitby's springs and its turn and puts British wool on both faces, which I'd much rather lie on than polyester. Firm sleepers who still want to turn their bed should look at the Dream Team Maidstone 1000, double-sided with no foam and 858 springs in a double, and again a sale buy. The step up is the Dream Team Fowey 1000, with more springs under a memory foam box top. It was a comfortable all-rounder when I tried it, though it's one-sided and its foam warmed up after a while.
