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10,000 BCE
Sleep where you lay
In the beginning there was no such thing as a bed. In 10,000BC, primitive men and women would lie down on the cold, hard ground, with little more than leaves, straw or possibly an animal hide providing a rudimentary ‘mattress’. Sometimes, pits would be dug, if the ground was particularly soft, and these would be packed with grass and moss. The sleeper could then curl up inside and enjoy some protection from the elements. -
1400
The birth of the bed frame
By the 14th century, the standard of bed started to improve. People recognized the advantages of sleeping above the ground, away from insects and cold draughts. So basic bed frames were built, usually no more than rough wood and rope straps with a bag of straw or hay as a mattress on top. -
The development of the mattress
By the turn of the 17th century, people had begun to appreciate the benefits of sleeping on feathers, and this had become a more common mattress filling. Yet it was still something of a luxury. A feather bed was a prized possession, often handed down from one generation to the next. If you were a maid working in the kitchen of a large manor house, you might be permitted to keep the feathers from the birds you roasted as a kind of dowry towards your own marital bed – such was their value. -
Comfort is key
At the start of the 19th century, Britain was in the midst of the industrial revolution. Technology was changing people’s everyday lives in myriad different ways, and the bed was no exception. -
Mattress Innovations
The innovations kept coming. Around January 1929, another man named Murphy was working for Dunlop, creating foam from natural latex. This was then poured into giant moulds and set, to create an entirely new type of mattress.
