Joe wrote:
I agree that "St. James' " or "St. James's" is a matter of debate.
It is considered better practice to omit the additional "s",

By whom?

I always thought that they were to show posession and to show missing
letters in words.
Anyone who watched 'Grumpy Old Men' a few weeks ago will know that
Barons Court doesn't belong to a Baron, yet Earl's Court belongs to
an Earl.

I missed that programme, but always wondered why the apostrophe was in one
but not the other. Why is Barons Court so named? (Oh, and just to confuse
matters, the name on the street signs nearby is "Baron's Court Road"!)

Does St James'/St James's/St James/St. James Park belong to
St James?

I think you'll find that St James's Park is named after St James's Palace,
which was built by Henry VIII on the site of the Hospital of St James.
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

I missed that programme, but always wondered why the apostrophe was in one
but not the other. Why is Barons Court so named? (Oh, and just to
confuse
matters, the name on the street signs nearby is "Baron's Court Road"!)

Well ignoring whether or not it ought to have an apostrophe, I just had a
look around and it seems the suggestion was that it was an invented name for
something like a housing development. Similarly you get Kingsbury which is
an old name, say Saxon or something like that, and Queensbury which is from
modern times.