Gosh, I know what you mean! I do hope you're able to get your new bank account. I didn't have a problem opening one with Barclays, but that was 9 years ago. One thing about them, though... don't go in there on a Saturday to do anything out of the ordinary. Twice, they refused certain services until a weekday (one was writing a Banker's Draft. The other was doing an international wire transfer of money overseas). Their employees are poorly trained and only handle very basic stuff on Saturdays. Now that's our branch, so perhaps the branch in your area is better.
I didn't want to go into London, either. I doubt I could walk the distance from the train station to the Embassy, then wait around for 2 hours. Much easier doing things by mail, except they demand you only use DX as a courier service, and you have to get to DX by the link on their page, because if you phone up DX they will claim they don't do "one off" delivery services and mention you need a yearly contract. So just a "heads up" for you. Only use the link to DX from their US Embassy in London page. Good luck!