08/11/2026
Nearly every fine mattress made today rests on pocket springs.
Only one bed maker can trace them back to its own beginning. Vispring has handcrafted beds in Plymouth, England since 1901, and the pocket spring is where its story starts.
In 1899, the engineer James Marshall had a simple idea: rather than lacing every spring together, encase each one in its own fabric pocket, free to respond to the body on its own. Mattress design has followed that idea ever since.
Two years later, John Nolon and Frederick James acquired the patent and founded the company that became Vispring. 125 years on, every Vispring mattress is still made by hand in the same city.
The history is not the most interesting part. What matters is what Vispring declined to change.
Why does making springs in-house matter?
Most manufacturers buy their springs from specialist suppliers. Vispring still makes every spring itself, drawn from its own vanadium steel wire, to its own specification, under its own quality control. So when Vispring stands behind its 30-Year Guarantee, it is guaranteeing a component it built with its own hands.
Few bed makers anywhere in the world retain that level of control over the most important part of the finished product.
What does hand-nested actually mean?
Each spring is enclosed in a breathable calico cotton pocket, then nested by hand into a tight honeycomb formation by skilled craftspeople in Plymouth. Rather than behaving as one unit, every spring answers independently to the shoulders, hips, spine and legs, so the mattress adapts to each part of the body at once.
The same thinking runs through every material inside.
Real Shetland Wool and British fleece wool regulate temperature and moisture naturally. Hand-teased horsetail adds resilience and keeps air moving. Silk and cashmere, in selected collections, bring softness without a gram of synthetic foam.
And it does not stop at the mattress. Vispring's sprung divans carry the same hand-nested pocket springs, so the support philosophy runs unbroken from the base to the sleeping surface. That consistency is rare.
In 2024, Vispring received the King's Award for Enterprise in International Trade, one of the United Kingdom's highest honours for business, recognising more than a century of craft carried into the present.
Luxury is often read as beautiful materials, or skilled hands. Perhaps the rarest luxury is something quieter: building every critical component yourself, refusing to compromise on the parts no one ever sees, and holding that standard for 125 years.
That is the story inside every Vispring mattress.
To feel what it means in person, visit the Vispring New York showroom in SoHo and spend some time with the collection. Luxury Beds, London 1901.
Vispring New York 459 Broome Street, SoHo, New York (212) 792-7911
