Stanley Kirkwood

Stanley Kirkwood is a non-canonical character created for ITV's 2006 adaptation of the novel The Sittaford Mystery. He is the proprietor of The Three Crowns hotel at Exhampton. He takes over that role from Mrs J. Belling who holds that position in the original novel. Stanley Kirkwood is portrayed by James Wilby.

Compared with Mrs Belling, Kirkwood has a different and much larger role in the story. For one thing, it is his hotel and not Sittaford House that becomes snowbound in a snow storm and he has to look after all his guests. For another, the seance and the subsequent murder of Clive Trevelyan takes place in one of his rooms and he has to assist with Emily Trefusis and John Enderby as they investigate. At the end of the show it is also revealed that Kirkwood is involved in a plot with Evadne Willett to help a convict escape from Dartmoor Prison. The prisoner, Harold Wells is his cousin. After his most recent imprisonment, Wells's lover, Evadne, approached Kirkwood with a plan to help Wells escape. Some one year before the escape, she got Kirkwood to buy over the hotel. A week before the escape attempt, Kirkwood had dismissed all his hotel staff. Wells then escaped and hid in the hotel, posing as the cook Archie Stone. Wells and Evadne planned to flee the hotel after a few days but he was overheard discussing his plan with Kirkwood by James Pearson and the two were arrested by the police. Kirkwood was himself arrested for his part in helping Wells escape.nd Evadne were arrested at the end of the show as they attempted to flee from the hotel in a car.

The name Kirkwood is perhaps a nod to Frederick Kirkwood, who is Trevelyan's Exhampton solicitor in the original novel.