An active plate for a liquid crystal display has an insulating layer (76) arranged as a plurality of columns, each insulating layer column overlapping the pixel electrodes (12) of two adjacent columns of pixels. An opaque conductor layer is formed over the substrate and patterned to define column conductors (34) on top of the insulating layer, and source and drain electrodes for the transistor on top of thin film transistor layers (66). Thus, an insulating layer (76) is defined beneath the column conductors (34), so that it lies between the crossing row and column conductors. In addition, the columns of insulating layer (76) overlap adjacent pairs of pixel electrodes (12), so that the column conductors can overlap the pixel electrodes, thereby increasing the pixel aperture. The transparent pixel electrodes (12) are, however, the first layer to be deposited. This gives advantages in process simplification and corresponding cost reduction for manufacture of high quality active matrix LCD (AMLCD) displays.