U.S. Embassy in London

The US embassy looking rather spectacular in today's September sunshine.

London's first new moated building since the medieval era, it opened at the end of 2017 after the previous embassy in Grosvenor Square was deemed to small and no longer fit for purpose; not least as US Congress ruled that all embassies must be set back from the street behind a 100-foot 'seclusion zone,' and be built within a self-contained site of at least four and a half acres.

The building cost £1 billion and now the planting of prairie grasses and weeping willows native to North America have bedded in, it has really softened the appearance since the last time I was around that area.

I suspect the US government actually owns the land here as well, unlike Grosvenor Square which they could only lease from the Duke of Westminster.

He refused to sell the land unless the US government returned his family's land, confiscated during the American War of Independence.