Flashback: Yorkshire's coldest winters

1994-95: Persistent heavy snowfall hit northern Britain between January and March, including 40cms in Leeds in a single three-hour spell. The coldest temperature since records began (-27.2C) was recorded in Braemar, Scotland.

1978-79: The 'Winter of Discontent'. With much of Britain on strike, severe blizzards struck from late December until mid-March. Snow drifts in the North East reached 15ft.

1962-63: A famously cold winter. In some places the snow reportedly lay as high as hedgerows, with people preferring to walk on the tops of the frozen shrubbery than risk driving through deep snow.

1946-47: A country still ravaged by war endured more snowfall than in any winter in 300 years. After a mild December, it began to fall on January 22 and continued for weeks.

During the war itself, our picture was taken on a snowy day in February 1940 at Bannial Flatt Farm, near Whitby. A German Heinkel III - the first enemy aircraft to be shot down over England - was downed by a Spitfire piloted by Peter Townsend, later a Group Captain who would become engaged to Princess Margaret.

The picture is taken from our online archive of Forgotten Photos - Ghosts from Yorkshire's Past.

1813-14: Another famous winter, just months before the Battle of Waterloo. The Thames froze over, and London held the last "great" frost fair on its icy surface.

1683-84: The coldest of them all, remembered in the famous 19th century novel Lorna Doone