The British excavations at Mycenae in 1952 were conducted with a research grant from the American Philosophical Society assisted by contributions from the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, the British Academy, the Leverhulme Trustees, and the British School at Athens, under whose aegis the work was carried out. The principal objectives were the ruins by side of the modern carriage road once tentatively called a Hellenistic Gymnasium, further investigation of the Prehistoric Cemetery outside the Lion Gate to the west, the clearing of the House of the Oil Merchant (found in 1950 and formerly called the House of Stirrup Jars) and of the House ofthe Wine Merchant (found in 1951 and part of the Cyclopean Terrace Building).

The so-called Hellenistic Gymnasium, now completely cleared, proved to be a Fountain House to be identified with the Perseia Krene seen by Pausanias among the ruins of Mycenae. Here presumably Tsountas found the inscribed poros base which mentions Perseus and clearly belonged to a fountain. There are two basins, one wide and one narrow, built against a terrace wall of ashlar poros of late classical date. The existing ruins are Hellenistic, but overlie an earlier water channel. The water was probably led down from the well-known spring (now called neromána) which lies about twenty minutes above the acropolis to the east. Built into one of the basins is an inscription dating from the second quarter of the fifth century B.C., a boundary stone from a shrine of Hera. The identification of this Fountain House as the Perseia Krene confirms yet further the accuracy of Pausanias' account of Mycenae.