If wallpaper was painted over you could tell pretty easily by pulling on some of the peeling paint and breaking the paint chips. Wear a respirator mask while doing this, however, as often times flaking paint is a potential indicator of lead based paint. If the chips contain paper, then you're right, it's wallpaper with paint over it. If it's just paint, then be more careful - get the chips tested for lead.
Given the wide spread flaking, it is likely that the wall simply wasn't properly primed. An improperly treated wall when painted over will eventually lose adhesion with the paint and it'll flake away like you're seeing. If they applied paint directly to wall paper w/o priming, I think the same is true.
That 2nd picture DOES remind me of wallpaper... I've scrubbed far too much backing off the walls and that looks similar.
The grey subsurface is, I think, a kind of stucco mix that was often used to even up walls where lathe and plaster was replaced with the older style 2x4 drywall panels. It's nasty, gritty, dusty, unpleasant stuff, tougher than joint compound/plaster to work with because of it's tendency to crack and break rather catastrophically. When I run into that stuff in my rentals my approach is, "IF I have to touch it at all, it's ALL coming down." Plus with wallpaper I swear gutting is easier than stripping.
Now around the vent pipe, that looks like moisture damage. The bubbling around the pipe suggest water leakage. Is that a "finished" ceiling - ie - thats the roof on the other side of that wall w/ the pipe? If so, make sure it's properly sealed and replace at least that area of ceiling.
Picture #5 seems to confirm this - someone touched it, and patched it badly.
What I have done on my 1909 house (I am in the U.S.) in the same exact situation is clear a wider area of the lath and plaster and replace it with drywall. To do that, you will need to add some padding over the studs because the lath&plaster is thicker than 1/2" -- what I did was pad it with 3/8" plywood, then drywall over plywood to achieve approximately an even joint between the new drywall and the old plaster. Then you tape and sand the joints like you would with regular drywall, prime and paint it later.
Best Answer
I have done a lot of repairs like this, I usually use some kind of grinder or belt sander to bevel the edges of the area , then use hot mud to fill 3/4 of the depth once the hot mud is dry then I use mesh and mud to fill the remaining area and the mesh to bridge the gap (reduces cracking) after that I will sand and use topping mud for a quick final layer to match the existing surface, prime and cover paint is the last step. The res on the photo I can’t quite tell the pattern but matching is a bit easier if the base is solid, if you don’t use mesh or tape below the surface it WILL crack on those edges. Multiple layers something to bridge the edge below the surface and matching the texture on the top will make it look like a pro repair.