British Accent Resources
If you are looking for an accent sample for a specific role, then wherever possible you should try to get a recording of someone of a similar age and background and appropriate for the period. However there are many online resources and here you will find a collection of useful links to web-sites with audio archives that contain many samples for you to search through. If you want to listen to a specific accent then follow the links in the menu on the right which will take you to some web-sites with samples of regional accents.
ACCENT ARCHIVES & INTERVIEW COLLECTIONS
BBC FOUR Audio Interviews: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcfour/audiointerviews/professions/writers.shtml
British Library Accents and Dialects: http://sounds.bl.uk/BrowseCategory.aspx?category=Accents-and-dialects&browseby=Browse+by+county&choice=A-C
BBC Voices Series: http://www.bbc.co.uk/voices/recordings/
International Dialects of English Archive: http://web.ku.edu/idea/
Studying Varieties of English: http://www.uni-due.de/SVE/ACC_accents_of_English.htm
Charlie Rose Audio Interviews: http://www.charlierose.com/
The Routes of English: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/storysofar/series3.shtml