Soft, natural and turnable is a short wish list, and it's surprising how few mattresses tick all three. This one does. The Deluxe Naturals 5000 sits in the Wentworth Mercer range at Mattress Online, a pocket-sprung bed filled with wool and cotton, tufted flat on both faces and made to be turned over. It's the soft one of the three Deluxe models, where the other two are Medium and Firm, and it sits at the top of the Deluxe rungs, below the Premium ones. Lie on your side and your shoulder sinks into wool and fibre for a moment before the springs underneath catch it, so it feels plush and cushioned more than bouncy, and the give stops before you're lying in a hollow.
Its two Deluxe siblings show what sets it apart. The Wentworth Mercer Deluxe Wool 3000 is Medium and the Deluxe Wool 4000 is Firm, and both put wool over a single layer of full-height springs. This one adds cotton to the wool and drops to Soft to Medium. It also lays a sheet of micro springs on each face of its full-height layer, and that's where the 5,000 comes from. Most of the count is small springs.
Side sleepers under about nine stone are who it's built for, and average-weight side sleepers whose hips ache on anything firmer come a close second. Back sleepers of average weight or more should avoid it, because on a soft grade your hips end up lower than your shoulders by morning. So should anyone around eighteen stone or heavier, and anyone who knows they'll never flip a mattress, since a second face you don't use is money spent on nothing.
For a light side sleeper who wants wool and a bed that turns, it's the right Wentworth Mercer, and I'd buy it on the build. You'll only find the brand at Mattress Online, and I treat it like the shop's own label, which is no bad thing: your money goes on the fillings and the springs rather than on a famous name. Buy it for the feel and the second face. Leave the 5,000 out of the decision.
Soft to Medium, and the softest of the Deluxe beds
Soft to Medium sits one notch above the softest grade Mattress Online uses. A grade name means little once you leave the brand that wrote it, so think about your body instead, and start with your weight before you think about how you lie. Under about nine stone, a medium-firm bed is a plank under your shoulder, and this grade is the one that finally lets it in. From there up to an average build it still suits side sleeping best: the wool gives under your hip and shoulder, the springs stop them, and your spine stays in a straight line. Heavier side sleepers sink further than that and should look at the Medium 3000.
If your hip aches on a firm bed, this is the build to put under it, a soft layer over a sprung core so the hip goes down a little and then stops. Pain that lasts for weeks goes to the GP before it goes to a mattress shop.
Mattress Online calls the feel "cloud-like" and says it's "ideal for all sleeping positions". The first is fair once you translate it: a plush, giving top over springs you can feel pushing back, more cushion than bounce. The second goes too far. Front sleepers are the one group I'd talk out of their position anyway, and if you can't change, you need something firmer than this and a thin pillow so your neck isn't cranked up all night.
Most of the 5,000 are micro springs
The support comes from one deep layer of full-height pocket springs. Each coil sits in its own fabric pocket, so pressing one down barely tugs at the next, and the maker tempers the steel twice for a longer life. Above and below that layer sits a sheet of micro springs on each face, and between them they make up the headline count.
Give the micro springs their due: they add a little extra give right under your shoulder, which suits a soft grade, so they're doing something useful here. I still won't pay more because of them. Once a bed goes past one full layer, the extra springs are mostly small padding springs, and the full-height layer underneath does the supporting. Each Deluxe rung carries one full layer like this. The Premium rungs above go to a thousand full-height springs under thousands of minis, so the figure in the name tells you less the further up the range you climb.
Ask Mattress Online which size the 5,000 is counted for, and how many of them are full height, before you set it against another bed's figure.
The border is the best part of the build. A strong rod wire runs round the edge of the spring unit and two rows of hand side-stitching keep the sides square, so the springs reach right out to the edge. On a double that counts for a lot, because an edge that gives way shrinks a 135cm bed to something nearer a small double, and a soft mattress is exactly where you'd expect the edge to go first.
Wool and cotton on top, with polyester alongside
Each face is a woven damask cover over wool, then soft white fibres, which are a synthetic filling, then a blend of polyester and cotton. Wool tufts are pushed right through the mattress to pin those layers in place and keep them from drifting into lumps. The "Naturals" in the name is fair for the wool and the cotton, and you should know the polyester is in there with them.
I rate wool and cotton above any other filling, because they sleep cooler and they last. Overheating wakes me, and I hate being too hot, which is why I rate a bed of springs and fibre: there's no foam layer pressed against you storing up warmth through the night. Mattress Online says the wool keeps you "cool in the summer and toasty in the winter", and wool is good at both. With polyester in the stack as well, keep the bedroom cool and the duvet sensible on the warmest nights, and the fillings will do the rest.
Tufting is an old way of keeping fillings where they belong, and it works. Natural fillings still bed down where you lie over the first few months, which is normal for wool and cotton and is the reason the turning schedule starts so often. It's handmade in the UK, which is a nice story, but the wool is what you're paying for.
Owners like what turns up. One judged it well made from the weight, and says their stiff back has gone and they're sleeping much better. Another noticed no fumes when it came out of its wrapping. A third swapped into it under the trial after their first order didn't suit, and called it "a huge improvement on our first order".
Deluxe Naturals 5000 or Deluxe Wool 3000?
Most people should buy the 3000. It's Medium, its 3,000 springs are one full layer with no minis padding the figure, it turns over, and it's the all-rounder I'd send most Wentworth Mercer buyers to. Choose the 5000 when soft is the point. A lighter body or a side sleeper gets more give at the shoulder from the cotton and the micro springs, and that softness is what you're choosing it for.
The Firm 4000 between them is for back sleepers who like a hard surface, and it's no help to anyone shopping for soft. I sleep on my side, and of the three Deluxe beds this is the one I'd shortlist for myself.
It turns over, and a double takes two people
In its early weeks it wants turning a lot: over and end to end every three weeks until it's three months old, and every three months from then on. That spreads the wear over two faces, and a mattress you can turn lasts longer than a no-turn one. No-turn is usually a saving for the maker dressed up as convenience for you.
The catch is the weight. A single is 46kg, a double 63kg, a king 68kg and a super king 83kg, so turning anything bigger than a single is a job for two, and Mattress Online sends a two-person crew to deliver it for the same reason. Tell them which room you want it in, and be home when it comes.
It's 29cm deep, about 11.4 inches, which is a centimetre short of where I start worrying about sheets. Still, read the pocket depth on your fitted sheets before delivery day, and look for 30cm or more. Look under it too. Slats more than about seven centimetres apart are the first thing I'd blame for a dip, ahead of the mattress.
Give it a fortnight to settle, because a new mattress takes that long and so do you. If the grade still feels wrong after the month Mattress Online asks you to sleep on it, the 100-Night Comfort Trial lets you swap it for a different mattress. It's an exchange, not a refund. You have to buy Mattress Online's protector with the bed. I'm not keen on protectors over natural fillings, since they take something off how well the wool breathes, but here one keeps the swap open.
What to buy instead
Light side sleepers after soft and natural should stay put: this is the Wentworth Mercer for you. Everyone else in the range should start with the Wentworth Mercer Deluxe Wool 3000, the Medium all-rounder with one full layer of springs and a second face to turn.
If you lean firmer and want a turnable bed with cotton in it, the Wentworth Mercer Natural Pocket 1500 is the pick of the Natural Pocket line, graded Medium to Firm, though its "Natural" now means cotton blended with polyester. For wool and cotton from a maker with more history behind it, the Millbrook Wool Luxury 5000 Pocket at the same shop is double-sided with handles and graded Soft to Medium like this one. Millbrook is my favourite middle ground, heritage and a high spec at a fair price. It's 32cm deep, so budget for deep-pocket sheets.
