Fifth Wheel Caravan Mattresses

Fifth Wheel Caravan Mattresses

There is nothing else quite like a Fifth Wheel tourer on British roads. Whilst the rest of the UK caravan industry builds lightweight boxes designed to be towed by family saloons, the Fifth Wheel Company builds what it unashamedly describes as penthouses on wheels — enormous, fiberglass-shelled, slide-out-equipped luxury tourers that are handcrafted in North Wales and towed behind pickup trucks. They are closer in concept to a high-end apartment than to a conventional touring caravan. They cost as much as a small house. And the beds inside them are sized and shaped to match that ambition, which means that when the time comes to replace the mattress, you will not find what you need on the shelf at any high street retailer.

The Fifth Wheel Company was born out of a family trip to America. In 1997, Mervyn and Jenny Parry-Jones — who ran an agricultural machinery dealership in North Wales — were visiting trade shows across the Atlantic when they encountered the fifth wheel caravans that are enormously popular throughout the United States and Canada. The concept was simple but transformative: instead of towing a caravan from a ball hitch at the rear bumper, the trailer couples to a turntable mounted on the flatbed of a pickup truck, with the front section of the caravan overhanging the truck bed. The result is a towing arrangement that behaves like a miniature articulated lorry — far more stable at speed, far less prone to snaking, and capable of supporting a much larger, heavier, and more luxurious living space than any conventional caravan hitch could manage.

The Parry-Jones family began importing American fifth wheel trailers and converting them for the UK market, but quickly discovered that the American-built units simply did not meet European manufacturing and safety standards. So they purchased a farm at Rhuallt in Denbighshire, hired a small team of craftsmen, and set about designing and building the first European-compliant fifth wheel caravan from scratch. The company was formally incorporated in December 2001, and the first British-built fifth wheel rolled out of the factory in 2002.

The Fifth Wheel Celtic Rambler — a penthouse on wheels built in North Wales

A Family Affair in the Welsh Countryside

More than two decades later, the Fifth Wheel Company remains a family operation. Adrian Parry-Jones, the founders' son, oversees operations as managing director. His sister Ceri and her husband Gethin Whiteley — the company's technical director — complete the family team at the heart of the business. The factory at Rhuallt has grown substantially from its humble beginnings on a converted farm, expanding to include a BREEAM-certified head office and service centre, whilst the adjoining land has been developed into the Rhuallt Country Park — a holiday complex with touring pitches, permanent lodges, a restaurant, a spa, and a gym.

Production volumes are deliberately small. Each tourer is handcrafted to order using 3D computer-aided design and CNC-machined components, with the customer choosing from hundreds of combinations of materials, fabrics, colours, and optional equipment. The company has won the Caravan Club Caravan Design Awards eight years running and now exports to more than fifteen countries. It is the only manufacturer of EU-compliant fifth wheel tourers in Europe.

The Range

The Fifth Wheel Company currently builds three distinct models, each with its own character and its own unique bed configuration.

The Celtic Rambler is the flagship — at 8.5 metres long, 2.3 metres wide, and 3.3 metres tall, it is substantially larger than any conventional touring caravan. An electric slide-out section extends the lounge at the touch of a button, adding four square metres of living space. The bedroom features a king-sized island bed with a memory foam mattress. The Celtic Rambler starts at £92,500 for the 2026 model year.

The Dreamseeker is the more compact option — still enormous by conventional caravan standards, but designed for owners who want high-end touring in a slightly more manageable footprint. It shares the Celtic Rambler's fiberglass construction, electric slide-out, and king-size island bed in the elevated front bedroom.

The INOS is something altogether different — the first production caravan built in the United Kingdom to feature a slide-out section. Its main bedroom features a transverse island bed measuring 1.9 metres by 1.4 metres, which partly occupies the slide-out section. Production numbers are tiny — roughly 120 to 130 units built over the first decade — making every INOS something of a rarity on the road.

Why the Beds Are Not Standard

In a Fifth Wheel tourer, the elevated front section creates a dedicated bedroom that is raised above the main living floor, separated from the rest of the caravan by a step and a solid partition. This elevated platform tapers where it overhangs the pickup bed. The king-size island beds in these models are not cut to any standard UK mattress dimension — they are sized to fill the available platform in a way that maximises sleeping space whilst leaving room for wardrobes, bedside shelving, and access on both sides.

The INOS presents a different challenge. Because the island bed partly occupies the slide-out section, the mattress has a fold built into it — not for a day-night conversion, but to allow it to compress into the main body when the slide-out is retracted for towing. The bed measures 1.9 metres by 1.4 metres — not a standard UK single, not a standard double, and not a standard king.

And because every Fifth Wheel tourer is built to individual specification, there can be subtle variations in bed dimensions even between two examples of the same model. A mattress that fits one Celtic Rambler may not fit another if the owners specified different interior configurations.

Every mattress is handcrafted to your exact measurements in our Birmingham workshop

Premium Beds Deserve Premium Replacements

The Fifth Wheel Company fits memory foam mattresses to its king-size island beds as standard, which is a reflection of the premium market these tourers occupy. However, even the finest memory foam will eventually lose its support and resilience, and the unique storage and usage patterns of a touring caravan — seasonal lay-ups, temperature extremes during winter storage, the cumulative effects of vibration during towing — all accelerate the degradation of foam materials.

For the king-size island beds in the Celtic Rambler and Dreamseeker, our Imperial Elite™ pocket sprung mattress is the natural choice. For the INOS island bed, where the mattress must fold to allow the slide-out to retract, our CoolPlus™ memory foam mattress provides the ideal combination of comfort, flexibility, and temperature regulation.

Every mattress we make is cut to your exact measurements in our Birmingham workshop. Simply measure the length, width, and any tapered or angled sections of the bed base, and call us on 0121 663 6114 with your dimensions. We will cut your mattress to match and deliver it free to any UK address.