Why our sleep experts loved it
The Simmonds sits at the bottom end of Dreams' price list, and it makes no apology for it. Every big retailer keeps one properly cheap model on the shop floor; at Dreams this is it. It is the entry point to the Dreams Workshop range, a UK-made open coil mattress that took over from the old Brooke model with a smarter damask cover and kept the price at pocket money levels. Judged against mid-range mattresses it loses every category. As a way to put a decent bed in a kid's room this week, though, it makes a lot of sense.
What your money buys
A traditional open coil spring unit, a polyester comfort layer to keep you off the coils, and that damask cover, tufted to stop the fillings migrating. Medium tension. No pillow top, no clever materials. The polyester layer is there for a reason: it resists moisture and springs back into shape, and the surface stays presentable for longer than you might expect.
Where the corners were cut
You feel the open coils as a slight springiness when you change position, and movement carries across the bed more than it would through pocket springs, something to weigh up if two adults will share it nightly. Edge support is ordinary, the profile is slimmer than most modern mattresses, and there are no handles, so rotating it means gripping the sides. A couple of owners also found it firmer than the medium label led them to expect. None of this is unusual at the bottom of a range; it is the standard budget mattress trade, and Dreams has not pretended otherwise.
Who buys it in practice
Read through the 700 owner reviews and a pattern jumps out: parents. Kids' rooms, teenagers' first big beds, spare rooms, first flats. For lighter bodies and part-time use the Simmonds is close to unbeatable on price, and the reviews from that crowd are glowing, with more than nine in ten owners scoring it 4 or 5 stars and an average of 4.6. The doubtful reviews come from heavier adults using it every night, which is the one job it was never specced for.
Buy it or stretch the budget?
For a child, a teenager, a guest room or a short-term fix, buy it and move on with your day. For the main bed of two adults, the maths changes: a pocket sprung model like the Tadley costs roughly double and will feel better for years longer. The Simmonds is not a false economy, it is an honest one, as long as you match it to the light duty it was built for.
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Published: 26 March 2025 · Updated: 2 August 2026
Written by
Becky Reeve , Editorial Director, Mattress Expert
References (3)
Caggiari et al. (2021). What type of mattress should be chosen to avoid back pain and improve sleep quality? Review of the literature. J Orthop Traumatol.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8655046 Materials and Design (2013). New construction of mattress springs. Materials and Design.
https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261306913000642 Spinal Alignment Analysis for Mattress Selection Across Different Age Groups
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-97374-1_23
