The Needles vehicles transporting disabled visitors. This is because the single track road's position close to the cliff edge is considered dangerous for multiple car use. The Isle of Wight Coast Path has its westernmost point at the Coastguard Cottages. The Needles' pointed shape is a result of their unusual geology. The strata have been so heavily folded during the Alpine Orogeny that the chalk is near vertical. This chalk outcrop runs through the centre of the Island from Culver Cliff in the east to the Needles in the west, and then continues under the sea to the Isle of Purbeck, forming
Isle of Wight home, and so the island became a fashionable holiday resort, including for Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Julia Margaret Cameron, and Charles Dickens (who wrote much of "David Copperfield" there), as well as the French painter Berthe Morisot and members of European royalty. Until then, the island had been rural, with most people employed in farming, fishing or boat-building. The boom in tourism, spurred by growing wealth and leisure time, and by Victoria's example, led to significant urban development of the island's coastal resorts. The world's first radio station was set up by Marconi in 1897, during her reign, at the Needles