An Englishman's Castle

The Met Office has a series from 1659 to present available from their website of monthly temperature averages:
I have copy and pasted them into anExcel spreadsheet for you to play with.

Graphically it looks like this:
(Larger below the fold):

A nice little series of warmer winters we are having, just the sort of thing that makes you want to run around with a hockeystick...
And any debates about the reliability of early recordings or of the effect of Urban Heat Islands are welcome...