There is another explanation...

Hence we went to Mr. Bateman's house, the oddest I ever saw with my eyes. Everything breathes antiquity; scarcely a bedstead is to be seen that is not a hundred and fifty years old; and everything is quite out of the common way: he scorns to have anything like his neighbors. For six hours, I suppose, these elegant oddities would much delight a curious man; but after six months they would probably give him no more pleasure than a collection of feathers.

The Journal of John Wesley