Chapel House started to hold athletic competitions in 1867 and by 1869 a bicycle race had been included in their Denton Wakes sports on Monday and Tuesday August 9th and 10th. The meeting included "bicycle racing, foot racing and high jumping, with a variety of other athletic sports." Other entertainments during wakes week were the singer Jimmy Nuttal, a quoits match for £2 10s a side between J Housey and J Barber, a dog handicap race for £15 and a skittling competition for a copper kettle.
A bicycle handicap race was held at the following year's wakes sports with five competitors riding over 240 yards. The race was won by Davis of Ashton, who had twenty yards from scratch man Cooper, also from Ashton. The winner's prize was fifteen shillings. Bardsley, who was unplaced, won five shillings for having the neatest costume.
The wakes week sports continued for twenty years but bicycle racing was dropped after 1870. Other sports continued to be held at Chapel House, particularly running, but athletic activity there stopped around 1890. Chapel House continued to be run as a pub by Joseph Holt brewery and the grounds were used for football and athletics, until a housing estate was built there around Chapel Field Road.