The cone-shaped hollow reinforced concrete foundation (CHRF) is an innovative type of mountain wind turbine foundation. Model tests were carried out to investigate the bearing behaviour of CHRFs under monotonic lateral loading. Results show that the lateral bearing capacity of the CHRF increases with the increasing diameter and height of the foundation, whereas it decreases significantly with an increase in loading eccentricity. The CHRF rotates about the rotation centre during loading, and the rotation centre is located at an embedded depth of 0.55–0.65 times the foundation height and is 0.15–0.18 times the diameter of the foundation away from its centreline in the ultimate state. Moreover, the distributions of earth pressures along the sidewall of the CHRF represent that the sidewall of the CHRF in the loading direction is the central part for bearing lateral loads. A formula for estimating the lateral bearing capacity of the CHRF is proposed in terms of the limit equilibrium method and is verified by model test results. It is found that the relative error ranges from 7.99 to 17.2%, and the average relative error is 12.7%, indicating that the theoretical model is applicable to predict the lateral bearing capacity of the CHRF.