dodgy "lawn" to rescue or start again?

Hi folks
I moved into this house three years ago, and ever since the lawn has gotten progressively worse. the soil here is pretty much clay, and it spends most of the winter as a swamp. I'm getting sick of looking at the mess it's currently in, and I'm looking for advice on what is a reasonable next step. take a look at the photos to get an idea of the current state of my "lawn"

Oh, and just as an aside, I'm totally new to gardening. other than running a lawnmower over it, I've done little to nothing in the garden until now...

 

Hi and welcome to GC.
Things certainly don't look too good! I'm wondering if you moved into a new house and you are suffering a la most folk with a new house from builders burying their rubble and sprinkling a little topsoil over it!
Trying to have a good lawn is 1 of the hardest things in gardening. I am a pretty experienced gardener and my large grass areas are mostly moss/weeds but it looks ok if it's mown regularly and to get a bowling green type lawn would be an enormous undertaking.
It is a bit difficult to see from the photos how big an area you have? From what you have said it sounds like the biggest problem is drainage and certainly the bare patches after a minimum of 3 years growth are not a good sign.
I think you have to ask yourself if you do actually want a lawn at all as to get a good grass patch is going to be HARD WORK! Maybe some hard landscaping and flowerbeds might be better?
If you are set on having a lawn then I'd 1st of all have a couple of test digs to see exactly what is under the grass as if it's thick clay and possibly subsoil (bare patches make me think it is) then you are going to have to try and improve the drainage.
Have a look at this site https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=424 which will give you an idea of what's involved. Certainly it sounds as tho you will need to invest I some sort of sharp sand or small stoned gravel to help with drainage unless you fancy investing in a drainage system!!
I used to live in Lanarkshire (now in Fife) so understand it isn't the driest of areas! If you can get going now on doing test digs, weed killing what you currently have then if there are dry periods to work on the soil you should be able to have something suitable for sowing or laying turf on next Spring.

 

Are you in a very shaded area? May have a bearing!

 

Hi
the lawn is about 5 m by 4.5m so not the biggest. the house is an ex council house, but theres a pretty high chance the original builders rubble is just under the surface.
the garden gets the sun for most of the day, the evening sun is behind the house unfortunately.

I'll have a quick dig in a corner, see what i discover