Definitely, in zone 8, as I am also.
I have direct sowed some , and they are poking out now.
I have heard that you can winter sow peas like after Thankgiving. They will overwinter. But this winter has been too harsh and wiped out the peas. I am talking about 14, 15Fs. But now our lows are aroun 25F. Is this what you have ?
So, if I were you , I would transplant them.

peacekneads

I am also zone 8, but that means little. The question is how much more snow will you expect where you are? Any snow load can break transplanted peas, depending on the snow. Any ice load will do damage. Zone 8 winter temperatures are ok for most peas but pressure or severe wind will do them harm.

If you are expecting any of the above, I would plant them out on a frost-free day and protect them with rigid cloches.

Perhaps you have an outside protected storing area, a small hoophouse or a cold frame where they could get used to outside conditions before being planted out.

Galina, what can you buy in UK for rigid cloches? Hard plastic, or is glass still available? Here I've seen hard plastic bells for a few dollars, glass very rarely and expensive. Most often catalogs offer the "wall o water" protectors, which look to me like they could fall over and crush the plant. Not to mention one mouse nibble or thorn and the water drains out.

Thrifty persons can cut the bottoms out of 2 or 3 liter soda bottles and make cloches. You can also buy 1/4 inch or .25 centimeter wire mesh and make a cage that will keep mice out. If they climb it or birds fly in, use a circle of mesh to cover the top. Better yet, form a length of it into a bow lengthwise to cover the whole row. If the openings were big enough for stems, you could leave it in place and let the peas grow through it. A mouse can get through a hole the size of a dime, I've read. A dime is just over 1.5 cm and just under 3/4 inch.

Thanks everyone!

I'm in very NW WA, near the ocean and in a wonderful 'rainshadow'. So I'm not expecting any snow until next winter. Thanks so much! Hopefully I'll get them out there this weekend!

Happyday

I have cloches made from corrugated plastic roofing sheet, cut to size, bent to form a u shape and nailed to a wooden frame. The frame is just 4 pieces of wood from old pallets nailed together. Two square bits of corrugated to close the sides off. I have several of these cloches. They were modelled on these commercial cloches:
http://www.growsonyou.com/photos/question/image/510/main/super_cloche.jpg
but they are much stronger and also taller because of the wooden frames.

And I have a huge collection of cut off bottles too. One bottle goes over a little clump of 3 or 4 pea plants. When I have very rare peas or very few seeds, I use one bottle per plant and let them grow through the opening at the top. This way their stems stay safe from nibbling mice etc all season. But generally I remove the bottle cloches when the plants start growing out of them.

With wall-o-waters you always have to use a sturdy stick to prevent them from falling over, whatever you put inside them, 3 sticks is better. I have never put peas in WOWs but they would be sheltered from strong winds ok. WOWs do tend to leak from one or two of their tubes after a few years. A few leaky ones do not matter, certainly not if support sticks are used. If the WOWs get too bad, repair kits are available:
http://www.gardenharvestsupply.com/product/wall-o-water-repair-tube-10-pack

If anybody has connections to a company that does water fountains - this sort of thing
http://image.ec21.com/image/gworld/oimg_GC01241978_CA01251562/Water_Dispenser.gif
they might get hold of the plastic water containers which, so I'm told, can only be used a few times before they are thrown away. They make great cloches.

Most bought cloches in the UK are indeed plastic or a rigid metal frame which can be covered with plastic or netting or frost cloth etc. However we can still buy cloche clips, which are just metal or plastic bits that hold pieces of glass together at the right angles to form a cloche. You supply your own glass. 3mm thick so-called greenhouse glass panes are very inexpensive.

Here is the plastic version of the clips:
http://www.twowests.co.uk/TwoWestsSite/pages/product/product.asp?prod=CLC&cookie%5Ftest=1

A method that several gardeners here use is to take a length of drainpipe, sow peas into that and when planting out time comes, slide the contents into a drill in the garden of the same dimensions as the drainpipe. But I have no first hand experience of this method. It would go well with your wire mesh protection, as the mesh could be placed bowed over the drainpipe and would be held in place firmly as the plants grow through it. The reason why I haven't used this method is mainly because I grow in patches, not rows.

Peacekneads

Sounds like the right time to plant these peas and I hope they will do great for you.

Galina those are some great ideas! I like the corrugated row cloche. Unfortunately corrugated plastic is 16 to 30 dollars a sheet here. Seems overpriced to me. Not even sure how breakable they are. The old sheets had fiberglass pressed into the plastic and were hard to break.

Saran wrap or pallet wrap could be stretched over a wire mesh ring to make a cloche, like the frames you mention sold as bought cloches.

The drainpipe idea is brilliant for transplanting rows. Never heard that idea before. Thanks for the tip!

Galina - I also frequently used to have mice eating my peas. It seems they like to wait until the peas germinate and then they eat off the pea and toss aside the sprout. It's heartbreaking. What I do these days is lay a foot wide length of small mesh chicken wire along the row and press it down firmly to ensure there are no places the mice can get under. The peas grow up through it. This works pretty well. I always direct sow because I don't have the space to sow peas indoors. You need so many plants to get a useful crop. I knew about the guttering idea but again I can't really walk down the road to the allotment carrying lengths of earth filled guttering. BTW - we are talking about guttering folks, just in case anyone is currently trying to sow peas in a drain pipe! I also have the corrugated cloches which slide into D shaped metal frames. I bought mine but they have lasted around 15 years. The link shows the type I have.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1019712}}

Flora, by guttering do you mean something like this?

I figured Galina meant either gutters or plastic pvc drainpipe cut open lengthwise.

The mesh laid on the ground is another good idea. I've had to lay chicken wire on the ground over newspaper mulch. The birds here tear into newspaper mulch to get at bugs and worms underneath. I had to give up newspaper mulch because of these smart birds. Fortunately they have not figured out the plastic mulch yet.

Happyday - yes, that's what I'd call guttering. Semicircular or U shaped cross section. Goes round the eaves. Drain pipe would be circular cross section and takes water from gutters to ground level.

Here is a link that might be useful: {{gwi:1019713}}