US embassy features London’s first new moat since medieval era

The design of the new US embassy in London appears to have been inspired by European castles, with its own moat, but behind the six-inch bomb-proof glass, the 12-storey cube is Fortress America.

The 100ft-wide moat (or as Americans say, “pond”) - the first to feature in a new construction in the English capital since the medieval era - is “deep and wide enough to swallow any truck bomb charging toward the building”, CBS News says. A waterfall disguises a defensive wall, while the “impenetrable evergreen hedges camouflage a line of dense black bollards”, adds the Architects’ Journal.

The embassy sits on a hill south of the River Thames, set back from the street behind a 100ft “seclusion zone”, on a five-acre site in Battersea, in southwest London.

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The interior gardens emphasise American themes; one is inspired by the Grand Canyon, another Pacific forests.

“The building does not shout, ‘Spies work here!’ or ‘Stand back!’” says The Washington Post. “Instead, the vibe is modernist museum, that also happens to issue visas and might have a few hidden bunkers somewhere we are not saying.”

The embassy is one of the most expensive of its kind in the world, costing $1bn, says the Financial Times.

About 1,000 staff members will transfer from the existing London embassy to the new building when it opens in mid January. The US ambassador expects Donald Trump to go to London for the embassy’s official opening, although the president is not expected to make a state visit involving the Queen.