Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. The famous Chelsea buns, Fitzbillies’ most eminent treats, Cambridge shorthand for indulgent youth and happy tea-times, will now live only in our memory, intangible as May Balls past.

Fitzbillies is dead. It’s only to be expected that Cambridge students, along with ex-Tabs everywhere, are in mourning today.

That’s as it should be. The bakery was at the centre of Cambridge life for almost 90 years, supplying tea for visiting parents and thickly iced wads of chocolate things all boxed up for freshers’ birthdays. A smart slice of carrot cake cuddled up to a pot of Assam was the best of all remedies for Tripos stress. It will be missed.

The passing seemed sudden; no long illness before the end, no warning to inspire a charismatic ‘Save Our Buns’ campaign that could have pulled it from the sticky brink before it was too late. All that sugar and fat finally did for the place, and its heart has given out. The shop disappeared in the night with no real explanation given beyond "very difficult economic times", and no apologies or farewell letters posted in the window. There was only a stark, typewritten note for an epitaph: "We are closed."

But like all bereaved friends and relatives, current students are in danger of misremembering the past as we grieve. Fitzbillies came to represent an idyllic "Cambridge experience" for so many generations of students that even before the current lot of undergraduates arrived, we knew to revere this ancient eating place of giants. But this mythical bakery has never really existed during our time. The Fitzbillies we mourn died a long time ago.

The cute little café loved so famously by Stephen Fry was a different beast from the one that we’ve known for the last couple of years. Last autumn, TCS reported that Fitzbillies bakery had received only one star, and its restaurant none, in routine Cambridge City Council hygiene tests. Inspectors said hygiene was poor, and expressed "little confidence" in the management.

The management may have been the problem. Even that note announcing the closure is unsatisfying. You would think that such an important part of the local landscape and the memories of thousands of students would end with some kind of fanfare, but this was definitely a whimper, not a bang. It says a lot about the kind of management that oversaw the end; they didn’t give too much of a final thought for loyal customers. I didn’t expect a namecheck, but a ‘Thanks everyone, and goodnight!’ might have been nice. Instead, Fitzbillies has tailed off quietly.

Though I’m sure the company worked hard to regain its reputation after the news of the unfortunate star ratings, obviously some problems were never really solved.

Within a few minutes of discussing the closure with friends, our thoughts had already turned from horror and disappointment at the loss to memories of the less appealing sides of the whole business. It was expensive, and seemed always to have been so; the décor was distinctly 1980s in a dispiriting sort of way; cakes left in the window overnight often began to sag. And after the opening of Patisserie Valerie, with its cosmopolitan London air and celestial almond macaroons, Fitzbillies began to feel a bit like a ragged old tea cosy next to a newly-bought kettle.

On reflection, we thought, were we actually that bothered it had closed? The death throes are obvious in hindsight.

We as current Cambridge students have never been a part of the Fitzbillies golden age. We liked to pop in; to look at the portraits of great bakery alumni on the walls; to imagine we might join them up there one day. If we could resurrect Fitzbillies, there would have to be some big changes made to everything from the food preparation to the paint.

There have been rumblings on Twitter of a campaign to convince Stephen Fry to buy the name and recreate the Fitzbillies of his memory and imagination. And I’m up for calling in Mary Portas to help Fry to forge a new bakery from the ashes, somewhere clean and fresh with the same secret Chelsea bun recipe but a delicious new repertoire of cakes to go with it. Maybe with cheerful staff, and proper teapots rather than those little steel things, and certainly with a bigger sense of pride appropriate to the bakery’s history.

Let’s bring back the Fitzbillies of decades ago as a consolation for the ailing remains we’ve had to make do with instead. It will be a success.

Cambridge, after all, will always need nostalgia and buns.