Free Republic

Archaeologists from the Red River Archaeology Group came across the complex while working on a Barratt and David Wilson Homes housing development at Brookside Meadows in Grove near Wantage, Oxfordshire.The site sits on a landscape inhabited since the Bronze Age which has been described as "artefact-rich".The group's project officer said it was "an important centre of activities for a long time".The archaeologists said the villa complex was richly decorated with painted plaster and mosaics.Finds also include a monumental hall-like "aisled building", which is a type of structure that seems to date from the late 1st Century AD.This building is immediately...

President Donald Trump on Friday picked former Republican Congressman Scott Garrett of Wantage to lead the U.S. Export-Import Bank, an institution Garrett has spoken out against. Garrett, who represented New Jersey's 5th District for seven terms, was defeated in November by Democrat Josh Gottheimer. During his time in Congress, at a town hall in Lafayette in May 2015, Garrett said he would favor doing away with the Export-Import Bank, which makes loans to companies doing business overseas. And at a congressional hearing in 2014, he said, "when you mix big corporations and taxpayer-backed guarantees, you get a little something that...

A Wantage dairy farmer has become the first Sussex County farmer -- and only the fourth ever from New Jersey -- to be named a winner in the 49th annual National Outstanding Young Farmer competition. He also is the first dairy farmer in New Jersey to win the award, said Lynne Richmond, a spokeswoman with the New Jersey Department of Agriculture. "The recognition means a lot to me. I was just happy to be there," said Jeff VanderGroef, who operates the 337-acre Havendale Farm, one of the largest dairy farms in New Jersey. VanderGroef, 37, received the New Jersey 2005...