After some advice, SO noticed that some of the paper on the bedroom ceiling was coming away. So in my stupidity i investigated.

End result i have a small section of ceiling that no longer has any paper on it. 6×18 inches

Briefly, the ceiling is c120 years old by the looks of it, been up in the loft and can see hair in the plaster from that side and have no reason to believe it is not original. However on the room side a small amount of the surface skim has come off the plaster. Not sure why? whether the paper when applied caused damage?? There doesn’t appear to be any water damage that i can see, but who knows how long the problem was there.

Anyway, best way to repair the ceiling? would a skim of plaster cause issues, i am guessing due to age the plaster is lime based currently

concern is that if i try and take the paper off i am going to trash the whole ceiling, chipboard paper….

Is a patch of new paper and paint going to be obvious? If this is possible best way of sticking paper up?

Overboard and skim ,job done.

Overboard & skim +1 !
Is there coving in the room?

If you are near North London / Essex I know a guy who did a brilliant job on our Victorian ceilings.

how easy to over board when the ceiling is not flat? It is flat for most of the room but then slopes down towards the outside walls.

No Cheltenham but thanks.

if its just a small area of the finish skim plaster that has come off you could patch it up using gypsum multi finish, wet the baking lime plaster up firt using a small hand sprayer. then just apply the finish plaster, might pay to chamfer the edges of the original plaster , that way the new plaster will help to support the old.
i wouldnt try to pull down the original paper youll probably find a lot of the skim will come off with it.
if you eventually go for a new ceiling try to leave the original in place and put new boards up fixed through the old ceiling into the joists, it might save you a lot of mess.
hope this is of help cheers, my good deed for the weekend… i can be a shit now . 🙂

Another helpfull link if you go for repairs in lime are the Trad lime company at leckhampton 01242 525444

yetirose thanks