It has two pubs, several churches, a pottery workshop/shop, a pharmacy, a busy volunteer-run library, a medical centre and two local shops including a post office.

Niton village is split in half by a break in the inner cliff of the Undercliff, through which passes the main road.

The lower part of the village, below the inner cliff and above Reeth Bay, is known as Niton Undercliff, and was a small fishing hamlet up until the 19th century.

This part of Niton then flourished in Victorian times due to the popularity of Ventnor as a health resort, and many mansions and holiday cottages were built there.

Its residents included a Mr Kirkpatrick who owned the Isle of Wight Bank at the time and the owner of the Mortimer Foundry in Newport.

[4] Prehistoric lithic implements dating to the lower Palaeolithic constitute the oldest evidence of occupation of the area by hominids at some point in the early to mid Pleistocene.

Close to Niton is the sheltered and remote Puckaster Cove, which was once proposed to have been used by Greek and Phoenician traders during the Bronze Age.

[10] Marconi used Knowles Farm in Niton for radio experiments, when he was living on the island in the late 1890s and early 1900s.

The farm has a stone into which is cut the inscription, "This is to commemorate that Marconi set up a wireless experimental station here in A.D. 1900".