Magazine

In an average lifespan, twenty six years are spent asleep. Every night, sleep works its magic of renewal. It washes our brains clear of toxins. It resets and rejuvenates our bodies, restoring and rebalancing our immune system. Sleep is nothing short of essential for our all-round health and wellbeing. 

At Rose Uniacke the perfect quality of our unrivalled handmade beds ensures the best possible conditions for healthy, restorative sleep. All our beds are made in Hampshire, of entirely natural materials, using techniques that have changed very little over the last 80 years, by experts who have been specialising in luxury beds for more than a quarter of a century.

All our beds are divans, constructed in two parts, locked together with steel clips to ensure stability. The frames of the divans are of sustainably sourced redwood, traditionally jointed, glued and screwed for maximum strength, and the finished bed sits either on eight simple, wooden bun feet, or on smooth-rolling castors.

The upper unit is hand-sprung, not with modern pocket-springs but using sandwiched layers of traditional mattress-springs, for guaranteed support and comfort. These are covered and protected by a hessian, cotton and wool pad, finished with a top layer of grade A organic lamb’s wool and horse-hair, and then encased in hand-tufted, traditional high-quality cotton ticking.

The mattresses are entirely handmade and hand-sewn, again traditionally rather than pocket-sprung and layered, for comfort, with a deep internal build-up of hessian, grade A horse-hair and lamb’s wool. Then the mattress is covered and hand-tufted in the same traditional high-quality cotton ticking. The absence of chemical-based foams means the all-natural mattress breathes and aerates and retains its shape.

These are beds that are built to last a lifetime, offering the quiet reassurance of twenty six years’ uncompromised comfort and the best possible conditions for high quality, health-giving, restorative sleep. Paired with a handmade Rose Uniacke Headboard made of the same natural materials, filled with a combination of ginger fibre and British wool, and built with the same attention to ultimate comfort and durability. The beds come in three sizes, king, super king and emperor, or can be made to measure.

To dress our beds there are simple valances with kick pleats at the corners and no visible seams. These are cut so as to graze the floor and can be made to order in any Rose Uniacke fabric.

Our bedlinen is woven in family mills in northern Portugal, an area well known for the quality of its cotton production. Communities of women, who have passed their craftsmanship down through several generations, produce a beautifully thick cotton sateen, woven in two different natural colours - petal and paperwhite - and then cut and hand-crafted to designs of Rose’s own choosing.