Our Brook + Wilde Ultima mattress review puts one of the brand's premium hybrid mattress through its paces to see how it compares to the best mattresses Ideal Home has tested so far.
Quick review
A mix of sprung support with a memory foam comfort layer, the Ultima is a hybrid mattress with a difference. Namely the fact that, unlike most of its hybrid competitors, the Ultima is available in four different tension options – soft, medium, medium-firm, and firm.
This becomes important once we understand that how a mattress feels depends a lot on our individual body weight. For instance although a mattress may be classed as medium-firm, a heavier person will likely sink in more than a lighter person, so mattress tension isn't a one-size-fits-all situation.
Our preferred sleeping position also plays a factor in our tension choice. For example side sleepers need a slightly softer tension than a back sleeper to allow the hip and shoulder to sink into the mattress surface when you're laid on your side.
Those tension options, plus a generous 200 night sleep trial that enables you to test out the mattress before you commit, mean the Ultima is a brilliant option for a wide range of sleepers. Myself and my husband certainly loved it when we recently put it through its paces, finding it comfortable and supportive, with great motion isolation, responsiveness, edge support and decent temperature regulation. It's not cheap, but the fact you can tailor the feel to your exact requirements mean we think it's worth the investment.
Brook + Wilde Ultima mattress review
Overall we consider ten factors when we test mattresses. We then use these to score each mattress out of 5. The Brook + Wilde Ultima mattress scored an impressive 5 out of 5. Read on to find out why.
Specifications
Type: Hybrid
Main construction materials: Memory foam, springs
Sizes: Double / King / Super King
Firmness: Soft / Medium / Medium-Firm / Firm
Height: 30cm
Flip or rotate: Rotate
Side handles: Yes
Manufacturer sleep trial: 200 night
1. Comfort
The Brook + Wilde Ultima is a hybrid mattress with an impressive ten layers, consisting of a mix of a memory foam comfort layer and 6000 nano and pocket springs which the brand describes it as 'the ultimate sleep surface'.
It took a few nights for my partner and I to get used to sleeping on the Ultima compared to our (very) old mattress, but our first impressions were good. Both myself and my partner sleep on either our backs or sides, and we both only had good things to say about the comfort levels of this mattress.
We tested the Ultima mattress in a medium firm tension and found it pretty much exactly that, offering the perfect flat surface with a bit of give to support our backs. When lying on my side, there was no discomfort on any of my joints.
Experts often advise that a medium firm mattress is the best mattress for back pain. I often suffer from lower back pain (I blame sitting at a desk every day), but the mornings after sleeping on the Ultima, I woke up with no pain whatsoever. My colleague over at Livingetc also tested this mattress while eight months’ pregnant and found it relieved all her aches and pains, which is pretty impressive.
Of course, how firm you find a mattress does depend on your body weight and its comfort levels depend on your preferred sleeping position. I would say my partner and I are of average height and build, but if you're lighter you may find this mattress to feel firmer, and if you're heavy you may find it softer than we did.
The great news is that Brook + Wilde make the Ultima mattress in four tension options – soft, medium, medium-firm, and firm. This is fairly unusual in the world of hybrid mattresses that tend to come in a one-tension-fits-all approach. It means you'll pay a little more, and possibly have to wait a little longer for your Brook + Wilde mattress to be delivered, but does mean you can find exactly the right comfort-level for your body.
The only sleep position I'd say that this mattress might not be quite so suitable for is if you sleep on your front. Because this mattress has a memory foam top layer that means it moulds around your body a little to cushion your joints. When front sleeping that could mean that your hips end up sinking a little too low.
2. Responsiveness
Unlike a pure foam mattresses, such as the Tempur Sensation mattress or Emma Original mattress, the Ultima has springs hiding under its memory foam top layer.
In my tests I found this made it much more responsive to sleep on as I felt less like I was sinking in to the mattress and more like I was lying on it.
Although the memory foam did still mould around my joints, I found this firmer sleep surface made it easier to roll over and change position in the night as there wasn't so much 'lag' whilst I was waiting for the memory foam to reshape around my new sleeping posture.
3. Motion isolation
Next up it was the motion isolation test. Why is motion isolation important in a mattress? Because if we co-sleep it reduces the transfer of movement from one side of the bed to the other. On a mattress with good motion isolation, one partner tossing and turning shouldn't disturb the other person as much as it would on a mattress with poor motion isolation.
Neither my partner or I are particularly fidgety at nighttime, but we do have slightly different bed times, and I didn’t feel a thing when my partner came to bed an hour or two after me. For a more extreme test we took it in turns flopping onto the bed to test out the motion transfer and marvelled at the fact we could barely feel each other.
Sadly it didn’t help with my partner's incessant snoring, but you can’t win them all, and motion transfer at least is almost non-existent.
4. Temperature regulation
Standard memory foam mattresses can often sleep warm. That's because memory foam tends to lack breathability which can cause the heat and humidity that all of our bodies release during the night to become trapped with nowhere to go.
The Ultima mattress combats this in two ways, first through the use of open-cell memory foam which offers better airflow than 'normal' memory foam, and secondly through the mattress's fabric cover which the brand says can cool your temperature by 2°C, and contains 'microcapsules which proactively manage body temperature by storing and releasing any excess heat'. No doubt the addition of springs also helps as these tend to act a little like bellows to move air through the mattress, especially in contrast with a pure foam mattress.
I’m always a little on the warm side when I sleep, and we tested this mattress through June and part of July, and so found ourselves in a couple of heatwaves during the period. I have to say that even when the temperature stayed upwards of 20 degrees at night, I slept all the way through, and wasn’t overly hot when I woke up either.
This is an even more impressive feat considering our house is essentially a furnace, and we were sleeping with the door shut and one measly fan between the two of us.
5. Edge support
When my partner and I first tested the Ultima mattress we marvelled at the fact we could roll right to the edge of the bed without immediately falling off, unlike our old mattress which sank at the sides under our bodyweight.
Although I'd always recommend opting for the largest mattress you can when choosing a mattress size, no matter how much space there is in the bed I still find myself sleeping close to the edge most nights, and I felt completely secure doing so on the Ultima mattress.
There was little to no sagging at the edge and likewise, sitting on the edge of the bed it was easy to push up into a standing position.
6. Ease of care
As a hybrid mattress the Brook +Wilde Ultima only has the memory foam comfort layer on one side, that means it can't be flipped. Instead, it should be rotated regularly to ensure even wear and tear. This is made easier thanks to side handles that help with the mattress' manouevrability, but this mattress is still heavy. Not so much so that it's impossible to move – but I would say you need two fairly strong people to do it.
A one-sided mattress could perhaps lack some longevity compared to a high quality two-sided mattress. After all, only one side means that side will get more wear and tear. However, I've only owned this mattress for a few months, so it's as yet too early for me to comment on its durability.
7. Sleep trial
It can be very difficult to judge if a mattress is the right one for you – especially if you're ordering online, as you likely are with a Brook + Wilde mattress as the brand doesn't have its own showrooms.
That's where a sleep trial can come in very handy. All sleep trials differ slightly in their terms and conditions, but generally a sleep trial generally means that you get to test a mattress out in your own home – usually for anywhere between 30 and 365 nights – with the option to return the mattress for a refund if it doesn't suit you.
As of writing, Brook +Wilde offers a generous sleep trial of up to 200 nights on the Ultima mattress. This isn't quite as long as Nectar's 365 night sleep trial, but it is on a par with the likes of Simba and Emma, and should be plenty of time to assess whether the mattress is a good fit for your needs. It also means if you don't get your tension choice right first time, you should be able to try again.
8. Delivery
While this mattress normally arrives in a box, ours came rolled but wrapped only in plastic. This is good news for portability as a rolled mattress is far easy to manoeuvre along awkward hallways or narrow staircases.
Brook + Wilde offer delivery to the room of your choice as standard and the delivery team will also unbox the mattress for you. This is a great service, as more affordable mattress brands – such as Emma – often only deliver their mattresses to your doorstep, which can mean a lot of heavy lugging.
The only potential downside is that because this mattress comes in four tension options, that means it's made to order, so you may need to wait a few weeks for your order to be delivered. (I definitely think it's worth the wait!).
As this mattress arrives vacuum-packed and rolled, you're supposed to leave it overnight to let it expand, but we found it was deep enough to sleep on after a couple of hours. One thing to note, with a depth of 30cm, this mattress does feel quite high when you first sit on it. As a 5’8” tall(ish) person, this wasn’t an issue and I soon got used to it, but if you’re of a smaller stature, it might feel a bit unusual to start with. We had to buy new sheets to fit, but they were easy enough to find.
9. Environmental impact
Like many products, mattresses can pose environmental problems, not least when it comes to how to get rid of a mattress at the end of its lifespan. The National Bed Federation estimates that 6.4 million mattresses were disposed of between 2017 and 2021, and only 14% of these were recycled, with many others going to landfill.
Buying a mattress with a lower environmental impact can do a lot to help. A mattress made predominantly from natural materials – like the Hypnos Pillow Top Select mattress or Woolroom Hebridean 3000 mattress – is often the best bet as natural materials are renewable, usually easier to recycle, and if they can't be recycled will naturally biodegrade.
However, synthetic mattresses tend to be more affordable, and lots of us love the cushioning of manmade memory foam. In this case choosing a manufacturer that's consciously trying to lower its environmental impact can make a big difference. Hybrid mattress manufacturer Simba for instance has recently become a B Corp and regularly publishes an environmental impact report detailing the measures it's taking to make its production processes circular and more sustainable.
Whilst Brook + Wilde's sustainability policies aren't quite as well publicised on its website, the brand does state it 'aims to work under a zero waste to landfill policy' which promises that '95% of our materials are recycled, with the remainder being used for energy. This process ensures that nothing goes to waste or to landfill'. This is more than many other synthetic mattress manufacturers are working towards, plus, any mattresses returned via the brand's sleep trial are donated to the British Heart Foundation for resale, which again avoids products ending up in landfill.
10. Value for money
The Ultima is one of the brands most premium hybrid memory foam mattresses, and it is an investment. As of writing, a double in the Ultima will set you back £1400.
In contrast, a double of the Simba Hybrid Original mattress – which features a similar combination of open-cell memory foam over a sprung base – currently costs £869. This is great value, which is why the Simba Hybrid Original retains top spot in Ideal Home's guide to the best mattresses. The Simba Hybrid Pro mattress, which we'd say offers a little more breathability thanks to its additional wool layer, is also a little cheaper than the Ultima at £1279.
However, the key difference – and the reason you might want to pay more for the Ultima – is that both of these Simba hybrid mattresses are only available in one tension option. In contrast, the Brook + Wilde Ultima offers the choice of four tensions. And that choice of soft, medium, medium-firm or firm feel means you're much more likely to find the most comfortable fit for your bodyweight and preferred sleeping position.
Of course, this pricing also doesn't take into account discounts. Brook + Wilde does offer occasional sales which can reduce prices. Our mattress deals page has a wealth of information on the best time to shop for a mattress discount, with Black Friday usually seeing the lowest prices.
How I tested
In putting the Ultima through Ideal Home's mattress testing process I assessed ten factors we deem vital to any mattress purchase.
My partner and I tested the mattress for comfort, responsiveness, motion isolation, temperature regulation, and edge support. This means that we slept on the mattress for a minimum of two weeks before I wrote my review – in this case we slept on the Ultima for a total of five weeks.
I also took into consideration durability, any sleep trials available, the delivery process, the mattress's environmental impact, its value for money, and, where possible, any third-party customer reviews – to see if they aligned or were at odds with my own experience – before writing my own review and giving this mattress a star rating.
