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Gravelly beach ridges, which are formed solely by swash processes, may accurately reflect past wave conditions. The thickness (or height) of a gravelly beach ridge approximately equals the height of wave inundation, which is the sum of the surge and wave run‐up. Their ancient counterparts, if well‐preserved and identified, can be used to estimate palaeowave conditions, which can later be converted to palaeowind intensities based on wind–wave relationships. A technique is described for estimating the palaeowind speed in this paper, which is referred to as the gravelly beach‐ridge thickness technique. By comparing these estimates with instrumental wind records obtained at a modern lake, Qinghai Lake in north‐western China, the beach‐ridge thickness technique is shown to be useful for estimating the average wind speed (Vavg). When applying this method to ancient fetch‐limited basins, five parameters are necessary: (i) the thickness of the isolated gravelly beach ridge; (ii) the average depth of the water body; (iii) the palaeofetch; (iv) the angle between the palaeowind direction and the normal to the shoreline; and (v) the particle size. This technique was applied to an ancient example in the Eocene Dongying Depression, located in eastern China. The results indicate that the average wind speed of the northern wind ranged between 2·27 m sec−1 and 8·36 m sec−1 from 45·0 Ma to 42·0 Ma, and displayed a generally decreasing trend that included early strengthening followed by weakening and later strengthening during this period. The beach‐ridge thickness technique provides a new perspective on delineating palaeowind conditions and can be applied to ancient fetch‐limited basins with gravelly beach ridges worldwide. Generally, if a water body is sufficiently large (fetch exceeding 40 km), deep (average depth exceeding 10 m) and waves (or winds) are determined to approach the shoreline with high angles (angle of incidence <35°), then the calculation errors will be small to negligible.

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