Our Family

Our Family

Time flies - for all of us

Sooner or later we will all need the help of a funeral director, and although there may be new businesses which can provide such services, for some it never seems quite right, or respectful, to make use of a firm that has not acquired the elusive patina of age, that indefinable degree of dignity which can only be gained through having been around for many years.

• A.W. Lymn The Family Funeral Service is a well known name and has long been associated with Nottingham’s inner city. Our headquarters is still located in Sneinton just a few hundred yards from Goosegate, where our founders, Arthur William Lymn and his son Harold Percy Lymn, traded as furniture makers and dealers at the turn of the nineteenth century.
• In 1907 father and son decided to specialise in the manufacture and supply of coffins and the provision of a full funeral service, hence their entry into the ‘undertaking’ profession as it was most commonly known in those days.
• The new business was soon so successful that it had to move to larger premises. In 1915 the office was moved to Bath Street, opposite Sneinton Market. The firms horses were stabled in Robin Hood Street and coffins manufactured in Handel Street. The stables were eventually replaced with garaging for motor vehicles; the same site now housing an impressive array of silver Rolls-Royce hearses and family cars, reputed to be the largest privately owned fleet of such vehicles in the world.
  
• When Arthur William Lymn died in 1929 control of the business passed to his widow Louisa and their son Harold.
• When Louisa in turn passed on in 1939 Harold took sole charge. Despite the coming of war in 1939, the introduction of petrol rationing and other wartime restrictions the business still continued to grow. Harold himself was involved in the war effort serving as a volunteer at the Civil Defence mortuary.
• Harold’s son Douglas and son-in-law George Rose continued to develop the business which became a limited company in 1958. Douglas and George became members of the British Institute of Embalmers and were involved in the first repatriation of human remains from England to Pakistan at about this time.
• In 1977, a year after Harold’s death, the company moved its headquarters to Robin Hood House, in Robin Hood Street where the main hub of the firm can still be found today.
• By the early years of the 21st century there were 27 funeral homes serving the whole of Nottinghamshire and South Derbyshire, as well as an in-house floristry division, monumental masonry business and a luxury vehicle hire department. Our fleet is renowned across the country and regularly travels great distances to be of service.

George Rose sadly passed away in July 2018 although his wife Sheila, (Harold’s daughter), now retired is still interested in the business

Their son Nigel Lymn Rose is Company Chairman and their daughter Jackie and Nigel's wife Penny are also Directors. Nigel’s son Matthew is Managing Director, his daughter Chlöe is Company Secretary. Arthur William’s great, great grandson Ben runs the Marketing and Public Relations with his wife Emma.

The respect accorded to the departed and the bereaved by Arthur and Harold Lymn has happily been transmitted, undiluted, to the present generations now running this family firm.