As temperatures plummet, the bookmakers are drawing up odds for snow falling on various locations across the country on Christmas Day.

After Oxford was declared a 7/1 shot we have looked in our archives for wintry scenes captured by our photographers over the years.

According to BBC Weather, there is a 49 per cent chance it will start snowing at 6am on Friday and throughout the day.

Oxford Mail:

A sledge ride down Wittenham Clumps

The big freeze of the winter of 2010 is sure to live long in the memory in Oxfordshire as there were a number of massive snowfalls, with the white stuff sticking to the ground for days.

Read again: Snow forecast? odds of a white Christmas in Oxford

In December 1981, we photographed St Peter’s College student Steve Palmquist with an igloo he and wife Dorothy built at the North Oxford Overseas Centre, in Banbury Road.

Oxford Mail:

Steve Palmquist

Mr Palmquist had no trouble building the igloo – and then revealed he was born in Alaska.

One of the coldest winters in living memory in Oxfordshire was the great freeze of 1962-63, when the winter was so cold the sea froze along the South Coast.

On January 22, 1963, a car was driven across the frozen River Thames in Oxford. Temperatures in some parts of the country fell as low as -16C.

Oxford Mail:

Pulling sledges

The winter of 1947 was one of the coldest on record, and the worst affected area in Oxfordshire was Chipping Norton.

Read again: Women arrested after sack of meat is found in car

On Tuesday, January 28, 1947, the start of the Big Freeze, temperatures in Oxfordshire fell to -18.3C, the coldest night since 1917.

Oxfordshire suffered a three-month spell of bad weather that year, with snow, ice, floods and gales.

Many schools closed, roads became impassable and there were widespread power cuts.

Thirty children returning home from a pantomime spent the night stranded in a coach after it became stuck in deep snow between Witney and Burford.

Oxford Mail:

Father Christmas at Henry Box School

When the thaw finally began in mid-March, it brought serious flooding.

Read again: Firefighters swoop to rescue trapped seagull

Oxford pensioners’ spokesman Bill Jupp, 79, of Arlington Drive, Marston, said in 2010 he recalled a snowfall of 3ft in 1947, when he was 16.

He added: “I can also remember the big freeze in 1963, when sheet ice stayed on the ground for a terrific length of time. I hope it won’t stick around as long this time.

“I also remember an old-fashioned Morris going across the ice on the Thames, near Donnington Bridge.

Oxford Mail:

An ice maiden in Park End Street in 2001

“These icy conditions can be very treacherous for pensioners and my wife Barbara, who is 73, fell on our drive before Christmas and broke her elbow and cracked two ribs."