Soon after the tar barrels had been set alight, the crowd broke down doors and windows to enter the convent and began to ransack the buildings. The nuns and pupils began to leave from the back and hid in the garden. At about midnight, the rioters set fire to the buildings, which burned to the ground within an hour or two, leaving them in ruins. They also desecrated the convent's tomb, in which several sisters were interred. The nuns and children made their way to a house on Winter Hill, where they were given shelter.