Place Name
Will street sign writers ever get a break? So often when they miss an apostrophe they get complaints from pedants objecting to the grammatical error, in this case they added one. Unlike the nearby Earl’s Court which had genuine earls as landowners (namely Oxford, Warwick and Holland – so shouldn’t that be Earls’ Court?) this had nothing to do with baronial heritage. The area, Barons Court, is spelt without an apostrophe. Instead it was named in the late 19thCentury by developer Sir William Palliser, who was probably inspired by the neighbouring place name (strictly speaking a Viscount is higher than a Baron… but it isn’t so easy to say Viscounts Court). There is the suggestion that it is a “whimsical allusion” to the court-baron, an old term for an assembly held by the lord of the manor or possibly a reference to the Margrave of Brandenburgh (a margrave being an hereditary title of some princes of the Holy Roman Empire) who lived nearby sometime around 1790.
