Is a french drain right for my lawn?

[andyste1]

We have heavy clay just a few inches below the surface of our lawn. It is only around 12 ft front to back, with the first 2-3ft (nearest the house) being virtually flat. The remaining 9-10 ft slopes away from the house with a drop of 6-7 inches. The flat area of lawn is waterlogged throughout winter/spring, and whenever we have heavy rain. It never gets as bad as standing water - just soft ground that churns to mud if walked on. The topsoil is only 2-3 inches deep.

We have a patio between the house and the lawn which has no drainage, so the rainwater tends to run down a couple of steps onto the flat area of lawn I mentioned.

I was thinking of trying a french drain, but I guess it's not really going to help drain the surrounding soil. How effective will it be at catching groundwater near the drain? (and how near is near likely to be?). If I go ahead with this, I was planning to run the drain in front of the steps and through the centre of the flat strip of lawn (and obviously a spur off these drains leading down to a soakaway*), unless someone suggests otherwise.

Also, should I use geotextile fabric? I've read that this can clog up in clay, and the advice seems to be to put it over the top of the drain only, rather than line the sides/bottom. Thoughts?

* The soakaway shouldn't be a problem as the clay drops away sharply as you get further down the garden. We have planted borders at the lower end of the lawn and those are at least 2 foot of decent topsoil. Behind this is our boundary fence, where the ground level drops another 2ft into woodland.

[Tony McC]

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